Concentrations of cadmium (Cd) in extracting solutions (neutral salts) from contaminated soils are often too low to be determined by conventional flame atomic absorption spectrometry. For this reason, determination of Cd requires sensitive analytical methods free from interference problems generated by samples. In this context, vapor generation atomic absorption spectrometry (HGAAS) was combined with a high-speed self-reversal background corrector. This new approach was successfully applied after optimization of the analytical parameters to obtain a maximal absorbance signal of the volatile Cd species. The optimum condition was achieved with a 3% (m/v) NaBH4 in 1.5% (m/v) NaOH reducing solution and a solution containing 0.3 mol/L HNO3. The detection limit was 1 ng mL–1 under the previous conditions and the relative standard deviation was up to 5% for 10 replicate analyses of Cd at 0.2 and 1 ng mL–1, reflecting a very highly sensitive and reproducible method. Moreover, the results showed that the proposed combination was an efficient method to overcome the interference problems caused by different coexisting cations, As, Al, Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se and Zn, up to 10 µg mL–1. The method was validated with analyses of two standard reference materials and was used for Cd determination in 0.01 mol/L CaCl2 extracts from contaminated kitchen garden soils. The data were compared with those obtained by two other more conventional methods, electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) and flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The analytical results obtained by the ETAAS and HGAAS were in a good agreement, suggesting the suitability of the method for Cd determination in 0.01 mol/L CaCl2 extracting solution.
