Chemically Modified Polystyrene with a Synthesized N3O2 Schiff Base as a New Solid Phase Sorbent for on Line Preconcentration and Determination of Copper(II) in Water Samples by FAAS

This paper reports the synthesis and application of a new sorbent for on-line preconcentration of copper prior to its determination with atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). The sorbent wasprepared by immobilization of N,N-bis(naphthylideneimino)diethylenetriamine on chloromethylated polystyrene. Copper was sorbed on a mini-column packed with sorbent and subsequent eluted quantitatively by HCl and determined by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). All variables were optimized for the quantitative preconcentration of copper ions and a study of interference level of various ions was also carried out. Under the optimum conditions, linear calibration graphs over the concentration ranges of 2.0-44.0 and 0.70-30.0 μg L^-1; detection limits of 1.4 and 0.46 μg L^-1; and enrichment factors of 80 and 183 were obtained for the preconcentration volumes of 10.0 and 25.0 mL of copper(II) solutions, respectively. Good relative standard deviations of 4.1 and 3.5% for ten replicate determinations of 10.0 and 30.0 μg L^−1 of copper were obtained, respectively.