Simultaneous determination of copper, cobalt, and mercury ions in water samples by solid-phase extraction using carbon nanotube sponges as adsorbent after chelating with sodium diethyldithiocarbamate prior to high performance liquid chromatography.
Recently, a sponge-like material called carbon nanotube sponges (CNT sponges) has drawn considerable attention because it can remove large-area oil, nanoparticles, and organic dyes from water. In this paper, the feasibility of CNT sponges as a novel solid-phase extraction (SPE) adsorbent for the enrichment and determination of heavy metal ions (Co(2+), Cu(2+), and Hg(2+)) was investigated for the first time. Sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC) was used as the chelating agent and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for the final analysis. Important factors which may influence extraction efficiency of SPE were optimized, such as the kind and volume of eluent, volume of DDTC, sample pH, flow rate, etc. Under the optimized conditions, wide range of linearity (0.5-400 μg L(-1)), low limits of detection (0.089~0.690 μg L(-1); 0.018~0.138 μg), and good repeatability (1.27~3.60 %, n = 5) were obtained. The developed method was applied for the analysis of the three metal ions in real water samples, and satisfactory results were achieved. All of these findings demonstrated that CNT sponges will be a good choice for the enrichment and determination of target ions at trace levels in the future.
School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan, Hubei, 430070, People's Republic of China.
Lei
L
Wang
School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan, Hubei, 430070, People's Republic of China. jbzhou@whut.edu.cn.
Jia-Bin
JB
Zhou
Key Laboratory for Applied Technology of Sophisticated Analytical Instruments of Shandong Province, Analysis and Test Center, Shandong Academy of Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, 250014, China. xia-w21cn0@163.com.
Xia
X
Wang
Key Laboratory for Applied Technology of Sophisticated Analytical Instruments of Shandong Province, Analysis and Test Center, Shandong Academy of Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, 250014, China.
Zhen-Hua
ZH
Wang
Key Laboratory for Applied Technology of Sophisticated Analytical Instruments of Shandong Province, Analysis and Test Center, Shandong Academy of Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, 250014, China.
Ru-Song
RS
Zhao
Carbon nanotube sponges; Cobalt; Copper; High performance liquid chromatography; Mercury; Solid-phase extraction