Simultaneous preconcentration of copper, nickel, cobalt and lead ions prior to their flame atomic absorption spectrometric determination

A sensitive and simple method for the simultaneous preconcentration of nutritionally important minerals in real samples has been reported. The method is based on the adsorption of Cu2+, Ni2+, Co2+ and Pb2+ on 4-propyl-2-thiouracil (PUT) loaded on activated carbon. The metals on the complexes are eluted using 5 mL 3 M HNO3 in acetone. The influences of the analytical parameters including pH and sample volume were investigated. The effects of matrix ions on the retentions of the analytes were also examined. The recoveries of analytes were generally higher than 95%. The detection limits for Cu2+, Ni2+, Co2+ and Pb2+ were 1.6, 1.3, 1.2, 2.3 ng ml(-1), respectively. The method has been successfully applied for these metals content evaluation in some real samples including natural water samples.