Simultaneous determination of lead and cadmium in various environmental and biological samples by differential pulse polarography after adsorption of their morpholine-4-carbodithioates onto microcrystalline naphthalene or morpholine-4-dithiocarbamate-CTMAB-naphthalene adsorbent

A highly selective, sensitive and rapid differential pulse polarographic method (DPP) has been developed for the simultaneous estimation of trace amounts of lead and cadmium in standard alloys, biological and environmental samples. The morpholine-4-carbodithioates of the samples were absorbed on microcrystalline naphthalene in the pH range of 5-10 for lead and 3.4-11 for cadmium. The metal complexes were desorbed with 10 ml of 1M HCl and determined simultaneously with a differential pulse polarograph. These metals can alternatively be quantitatively adsorbed on morpholine-4-dithiocarbamate-cetyltrimethylammonium bromide-naphthalene adsorbent packed in a column and determined similarly. The detection limits are 0.14 ppm for Pb and 0.014 ppm for Cd at minimum instrumental settings (signal-to-noise ratio = 2). The linearity is maintained in the concentration ranges of Pb, 0.7-15 ppm and Cd, 0.07-10 ppm with a correlation factor of 0.9997 and relative standard deviations of 0.95 and 0.81%, respectively. Various parameters such as the effect of pH, volume of aqueous phase, and interference of a number of metal ions on the estimation of lead and cadmium have been studied in detail to optimize the conditions for their simultaneous estimation in various biological and environmental samples.