Abstract:Microwave digestion technique was used in the determination of lead in mutton by flame atomic spectrometry and the application of this technique in meat and meat products were studied.Take microwave di－ gestion agent ratio（nitrate/hydrochloric acid）， power， climbing time and hold time as the four factors，the opti－ mal digestion conditions were obtained by orthogonal design and the accuracy and recovery rate of the method was verified.Experimental results showed that the major and minor order of the four relevant factors was mi－ crowave power， hold time， climbing time and microwave digestion agent ratio （nitrate/hydrochloric acid）， the optimal digestion conditions were microwave digestion agent ratio（nitrate/hydrochloric acid） 6 ∶ 1（volume ra－ tio）， microwave power1 200 W， climbing time 10 min， and hold time 25 min.The recovery rate was in range of 96.2 %－98.7 % for lead in mutton with RSD of 1.16 %.Our study showed that microwave digestion processing of mutton need less time， complete digestion， suitable for digesting large sample rapidly， and improve the accuracy of results.