An approach by using near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and resin adsorption for the determination of copper, cobalt and nickel ions in dilute solution

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has been proved to be a powerful analytical tool and used in various fields, it is seldom, however, used in the analysis of metal ions in solutions. A method for quantitative determination of metal ions in solution is developed by using resin adsorption and near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (NIRDRS). The method makes use of the resin adsorption for gathering the analytes from a dilute solution, and then NIRDRS of the adsorbate is measured. Because both the information of the metal ions and their interaction with the functional group of resin can be reflected in the spectrum, quantitative determination is achieved by using multivariate calibration technique. Taking copper (Cu²⁺), cobalt (Co²⁺) and nickel (Ni²⁺) as the analyzing targets and D401 resin as the adsorbent, partial least squares (PLS) model is built from the NIRDRS of the adsorbates. The results show that the concentrations that can be quantitatively detected are as low as 1.00, 1.98 and 1.00 mg L⁻¹ for Cu²⁺, Co²⁺ and Ni²⁺, respectively, and the coexistent ions do not influence the determination.