Abstract
BackgroundCopper is an essential trace element with a great importance in industry, environment and biological systems. The great advantage of ion-selective sensors in comparison with other proposed techniques is that they are measuring the free metal ion activity which is responsible for their toxicity. Porphyrins are known to be among the best ionophores in formulation of ion-selective sensors.ResultsA symmetrically substituted meso-porphyrin, namely: 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-allyloxyphenyl)porphyrin (TAPP) was used in the construction of a new copper selective-sensor and was also tested for the removal of copper from waste waters. The potentiometric response characteristics (slope and selectivity) of copper-selective electrodes based on TAPP in o-nitrophenyloctylether (o-NPOE), dioctyl phtalate (DOP) and dioctyl sebacate (DOS) plasticized with poly(vinyl chloride) membranes are compared.ConclusionsThe best results were obtained for the membrane plasticized with DOP. The sensor has linear response in the range 1x10-7 – 1x10-1 M with 28.4 ± 0.4 mV/decade near-Nernstian slope towards copper ions and presents good selectivity. Due to its chelating nature, the same porphyrin was also tested for the retention of copper from synthetic copper samples, showing a maximum adsorption capacity of 280 mg/g.
Highlights
Copper is an essential trace element with a great importance in industry, environment and biological systems
Detection tests Working concentration range and slope The behaviour of any ion-selective sensor depends on the nature and structure of the ionophore used in the membrane composition
Due to the fact that free porphyrins have donor atoms in their structure, the expectations are to have good affinity to transition metals ions. This was proved by several papers reported in the literature [13,27,28] that mention different porphyrins as sensing material
Summary
Copper is an essential trace element with a great importance in industry, environment and biological systems. The great advantage of ion-selective sensors in comparison with other proposed techniques is that they are measuring the free metal ion activity which is responsible for their toxicity. Trace metals are toxic for many life forms when their concentration exceeds a certain limit. This is the reason why their presence in the environment is an important problem and must be precisely monitored. Considered to be the second toxic metal to aquatic life, copper appears in waters and wastewaters from mining industries, refineries, paper and dyeing. Due to the increased interest in environmental protection, both its detection and removal are very important and many methods were used during the time for this purpose
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