Determination of bismuth in natural water samples by ICP-AES after preconcentration on dithiocarbamates-coated amberlite XAD-7

Abstract

A column solid-phase extraction procedure for separation and preconcentration of bismuth in natural water samples using sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (NaDTTC) or piperidene dithiocarbamate (pipDTC)-coated Amberlite XAD-7 resin prior to their determination by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) is reported. The results showed that solution pH and flow rate would affect the sorption of bismuth. The sorbed bismuth was eluted with 4 M/L of HNO3. The extractor system has good sorption capacity values of 9.82 mg/g of Bi on NaDTTC-coated resin and 9.56 mg/g of Bi on pipDTC-coated resin. The preconcentration factor was 150 and 170 for pipDTC-coated resin and NaDTTC-coated resin, respectively. The detection limits are 0.9 and 1.2 µg/L for resin-coated with NaDTTC and pipDTC, respectively. The results showed that resin coated with NaDTTC performs slightly better in the recovery of bismuth than resin coated with pipDTC. The accuracy of the proposed method was investigated by determining the bismuth in spiked water samples. The relative standard deviations of the determination of bismuth were below 5%. The proposed procedure was applied for the determination of bismuth in natural water and seawater samples.