Determination of cadmium(II) and copper(II) by flame atomic absorption spectrometry after preconcentration on column with pulverized amberlite XAD-4 with bismuthiol I

Abstract

A column preconcentration method with pulverized Amberlite XAD-4 loaded with bismuthiol I (BI) has been developed for the determination of trace Cd(II) and Cu(II) in various real samples by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Various experimental conditions, such as the size of XAD-4, adsorption flow rate, amount of bismuthiol I, stirring time for adsorbing bismuthiol I on XAD-4, pH of sample solution, amount of XAD-4-BI, desorption solvent, and desorption flow rate, were optimized. Also, the adsorption capacity and the adsorption rate of Cd(II) and Cu(II) on XAD-4-BI were investigated. The interfering effects of various concomitant ions were investigated, Bi(III), Sn(II) and Fe(III) were found to affect the determination. But the interference by these ions was completely eliminated by adjusting the amount of XAD-4-BI resin to 0.70 g, although the adsorption flow rate was slower. For Cd(II) our proposed technique obtained a dynamic range of 0.5-40 ng mL-1, a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.9913, and a detection limit of 0.3 ng mL-1. For Cu(II), the corresponding values were 2.0-120 ng mL-1, 0.9921 and 1.02 ng mL-1. To validate this proposed technique, the aqueous samples (stream water, reservoir water, tap water and wastewater), the diluted brass sample and the plastic sample, as real samples, were used. Recovery yields of 91-103% were obtained. These measured data were not different from ICP-MS data at 95% confidence level. Our proposed method was also validated using rice flour CRM (normal, fortified) samples. From the results of our experiment, we found that the technique we present here can be applied to the determination of Cd(II) and Cu(II) in various real samples.