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Simultaneous determination of copper, cobalt, and mercury ions in water samples by solid-phase extraction using carbon nanotube sponges as adsorbent after chelating with sodium diethyldithiocarbamate prior to high performance liquid chromatography

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Abstract

Recently, a sponge-like material called carbon nanotube sponges (CNT sponges) has drawn considerable attention because it can remove large-area oil, nanoparticles, and organic dyes from water. In this paper, the feasibility of CNT sponges as a novel solid-phase extraction (SPE) adsorbent for the enrichment and determination of heavy metal ions (Co2+, Cu2+, and Hg2+) was investigated for the first time. Sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC) was used as the chelating agent and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for the final analysis. Important factors which may influence extraction efficiency of SPE were optimized, such as the kind and volume of eluent, volume of DDTC, sample pH, flow rate, etc. Under the optimized conditions, wide range of linearity (0.5–400 μg L−1), low limits of detection (0.089~0.690 μg L−1; 0.018~0.138 μg), and good repeatability (1.27~3.60 %, n = 5) were obtained. The developed method was applied for the analysis of the three metal ions in real water samples, and satisfactory results were achieved. All of these findings demonstrated that CNT sponges will be a good choice for the enrichment and determination of target ions at trace levels in the future.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21477068, 21277108, and 21277084), Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2015YL003), Key Research and Development Program of Shandong Province (2015GSF117011), and Research Encouragement Foundation of Excellent Midlife-Youth Scientists of Shandong Province (BS2012HZ012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, 122 Luoshi Road, Wuhan, Hubei, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Lei Wang & Jia-Bin Zhou

  2. Key Laboratory for Applied Technology of Sophisticated Analytical Instruments of Shandong Province, Analysis and Test Center, Shandong Academy of Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, 250014, China

    Xia Wang, Zhen-Hua Wang & Ru-Song Zhao

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  1. Lei Wang
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  2. Jia-Bin Zhou
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Correspondence to Jia-Bin Zhou or Xia Wang.

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Wang, L., Zhou, JB., Wang, X. et al. Simultaneous determination of copper, cobalt, and mercury ions in water samples by solid-phase extraction using carbon nanotube sponges as adsorbent after chelating with sodium diethyldithiocarbamate prior to high performance liquid chromatography. Anal Bioanal Chem 408, 4445–4453 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-016-9542-8

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