Solid-phase extraction of Pb²⁺ ion from environmental samples onto L-AC-Ag-NP by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS)

Abstract

The development of a solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure for the pre-concentration of trace amounts of Pb²⁺ ion on 2-furan-2-yl-1-furan-2-ylmethyl-1H-benzoimidazole loaded on activated carbon modified with silver nanoparticles (L-AC-Ag-NP) was presented. The metal ion retained on the sorbent was quantitatively determined via complexation with the ligand. The complexed metal ion was efficiently eluted using 10 mL of 4 mol L⁻¹ sulphuric acid in 10 w/v% acetone. The influences of the analytical parameters, including pH, amounts of the ligand and the solid phase, eluent conditions and sample volume, on the recoveries of the metal ion were optimised. Using the optimised parameters, the linear response of the SPE method for Pb²⁺ ion were in the ranges of 0.2–160 µg L⁻¹, and the detection limit for Pb²⁺ ion was 0.034 µg L⁻¹. The proposed method exhibits a pre-concentration factor (PF) of 80 and an enhancement factor of 30 for Pb²⁺ ion. The presented results demonstrate the successful application of the proposed method for the determination of Pb²⁺ ion in some real samples with high recoveries (>93%) and reasonable relative standard deviation (RSD < 2%).

Keywords:

• pre-concentration
• solid-phase extraction
• AC-Ag-NP
• flame atomic absorption spectrometry
• Pb²⁺ determination

Additional information

Funding

The authors expressed their appreciation to Yasouj University and Islamic Azad University (Fars Science and Research Branch) for financial support of this work.