Online Separation and Preconcentration of Gold and Palladium on Amidinothiourea Immobilized Glass Bead for Interference-Free Flame Atom Absorption Spectrometry Determination

Amidinothiourea immobilized glass bead (AGB) was applied as the microcolumn packing for the flow-injection online separation and preconcentration of Au(III) and Pd(II) coupled with FAAS determination. The peak-area absorbance (A) and the peak-height absorbance (H) were all used as the evaluating modes. Au(III) and Pd(II) in 0.50 M HCl solution were absorbed onto AGB completely and then eluted into AAS with thiourea solution. Base metal ions with a concentration of 2.0 mg/mL and anions with a concentration of 20.0 mg/mL caused no interference in the determination of Au(III) and Pd(II). The LODs of Au(III) and Pd(II) for a preconcentration time of 60 s with a sampling flow rate of 5.0 mL/min for 0.20 µg/mL of Au(III) and 0.30 µg/mL of Pd(II) were 2.7 and 6.5 ng/mL with the H mode and 4.6 and 10.2 ng/mL with the A mode, respectively. The RSD of seven replicate determinations of 0.20 µg/mL of Au(III) and 0.30 µg/mL of Pd(II) were 0.018 and 0.024 for the H mode and 0.013 and 0.018 for the A mode, respectively. The method was successfully applied to the determination of Au and Pd in real samples.