Preconcentration of lead, cadmium and zinc on silica gel loaded with diethyldithiocarbamate prior to their determination by flame-atomic absorption spectrometry

A silica gel sorbent loaded with sodium diethyldithiocarbamate has been developed for the preconcentration of lead, cadmium and zinc prior to their determination by flameatomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS). The sorption and desorption of the metal ions was studied under both static and dynamic conditions. The metal ions were quantitatively retained on the silica gel sorbent based on an equilibrium time of less than 1 min. In case of the batch method, the effects of pH, shaking time, amount of sorbent, and desorption time were investigated. Among the desorption agents studied, only EDTA in ammonium chloride/ammonia buffer yielded quantitative recoveries. Freundlich's sorption isotherms determined for each metal show that sufficient sorption ability is obtained. The column method allows the preconcentration of metal ions from large sample volumes (e.g. 200 mL) using a flow rate of 5 mL min^–1. The influence of foreign ions present in natural waters and saline solutions was examined. The reproducibility of the total analytical method, expressed as relative standard deviation (RSD) is 1.8, 0.5 and 0.6%, for lead, cadmium and zinc, respectively.