Solid-phase extraction of Pb2+ ion from environmental samples onto L-AC-Ag-NP by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS)

Abstract

The development of a solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure for the pre-concentration of trace amounts of Pb2+ ion on 2-furan-2-yl-1-furan-2-ylmethyl-1H-benzoimidazole loaded on activated carbon modified with silver nanoparticles (L-AC-Ag-NP) was presented. The metal ion retained on the sorbent was quantitatively determined via complexation with the ligand. The complexed metal ion was efficiently eluted using 10 mL of 4 mol L−1 sulphuric acid in 10 w/v% acetone. The influences of the analytical parameters, including pH, amounts of the ligand and the solid phase, eluent conditions and sample volume, on the recoveries of the metal ion were optimised. Using the optimised parameters, the linear response of the SPE method for Pb2+ ion were in the ranges of 0.2–160 µg L−1, and the detection limit for Pb2+ ion was 0.034 µg L−1. The proposed method exhibits a pre-concentration factor (PF) of 80 and an enhancement factor of 30 for Pb2+ ion. The presented results demonstrate the successful application of the proposed method for the determination of Pb2+ ion in some real samples with high recoveries (>93%) and reasonable relative standard deviation (RSD < 2%).