A novel magnetic ion imprinted nano-polymer for selective separation and determination of low levels of mercury(II) ions in fish samples

In this work a novel ion imprinted polymer (IIP) based on N-(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)ethenamine (V-Pic) was coated on Fe3O4 nano-particles and characterized by thermal gravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG/DTA), IR spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and also elemental analysis. The application of this novel magnetic sorbent was investigated in rapid extraction, preconcentration and also determination of trace amounts of Hg(II) ions by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Effect of various parameters such as sample pH, adsorption time and desorption time, maximum capacity and also eluent type and concentration was investigated in this study. The relative standard deviation (RSD%) and limit of detection (LOD) of the method were found to be 1.47% and 0.03 ng mL−1, respectively. The amounts of mercury in some standard reference materials was Also determined using this sorbent in order to confirm the accuracy of this method. Finally, this sorbent was successfully applied for determination of low levels of Hg(II) ions in various fish samples.