Flame atomic absorption spectrometric determination of Pb(II) and Cd(II) in natural samples after column graphene oxide-based solid phase extraction using 4-acetamidothiophenol

Abstract

The determination of lead and cadmium by flame atomic absorption spectrometry after solid phase extraction on graphene oxide column with use of 4-acetamidothiophenol (ATP) as chelating reagent was described. PM6 semi-empirical and PBE density functional theory methods were used to investigation of adsorption mechanism of the complexes on GO sheet. The main factors influencing the preconcentration and determination of the analytes (pH, ATP amount, eluent type and concentration, flow rate and sample volume) were examined in detail. The effect of interfering ions on the separation-preconcentration of analytes was also investigated. For Pb(II) and Cd(II) solutions of 1.0 μg L-1, the preconcentration factor was as high as 250 (under the optimized conditions). The detection limits for Pb(II) and Cd(II) were 170 and 80 ng L-1, respectively. The validity of the proposed method was checked with standard reference materials and it has been successfully applied for the determination of trace Pb(II) and Cd(II) in water, herbal and fish samples with the recoveries of 99.4-103.5%.