Extraction and Determination of Heavy Metals Using Silver Coated Magnetic Nanoparticles and Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

A rapid, simple and sensitive magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) method was developed for the pre-concentration and determination of copper and cadmium ions. In this study, modified Fe3O4@Ag nanoparticles were synthesized and then ligand 2-isonicotinoyl hydrazine carbodithiolate (ITHCDT) was bonded to silver due to the formation of covalent bond of S-Ag. In this method, copper and cadmium ions were absorbed on the sorbent and then eluted by 1 mL of HCl (2 mol L-1) and measured by FAAS. Different effective parameters such as pH, eluent type and volume, amount of sorbent, sorption capacity, contact time were investigated and optimized. Relative standard deviation (RSD, n=7) under optimum condition for Cd (II) and Cu(II) was 1.23% and 1.67%, respectively. Limit of detection (LOD) of the method for cadmium and copper was 0.87 and 0.51 μg L-1, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of trace amounts of copper and cadmium ions in water samples.