Selective separation of silver(I) and mercury(II) ions in natural water samples using alumina modified thiouracil derivatives as new solid phase extractors

A simple and reliable solid-phase extraction (SPE) method has been developed to synthesise two new sorbents: 6-propyl-2-thiouracil and 5,6-diamino-2-thiouracil physically loaded onto alumina surface, phases I and II, respectively. The synthesis of these new phases has been confirmed by IR-spectroscopy. The surface concentrations of the organic moieties were determined to be 0.182 and 0.562 mmol g^?1 for phases I and II, respectively. The evaluation of the selectivity and metal uptake properties incorporated in these two alumina phases were also studied and discussed for 10 different metal ions: Ca(II), Fe(III), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II), Cd(II), Hg(II), Pb(II) and Ag(I) under different controlling factors. The data obtained clearly indicated that the new SP-extractors have the highest affinity for retention of Hg(II) ions. Selective separation of Hg(II) from Ag(I) as one of the most interfering ion, in addition to the other eight coexisting metal ions under investigation, was achieved successfully using the new sorbents at pH = 9.0 under static conditions. Therefore, Hg(II) exhibits major retention percentage (100.0%) using phase I or II. However, Ag(I) exhibits minor retention percentage equal to 1.33% using phase I and 0.67% using phase II. On the other hand, the retention percentage of the other eight metal ions ranged (0.0–3.08%) using phase I and (0.0–1.54%) using phase II at the same pH. The new phases were applied for separation and determination of trace amounts of Hg(II) and Ag(I) spiked natural water samples using cold vapour atomic absorption spectroscopy and atomic absorption spectroscopy with no matrix interference. The high recovery values of Hg(II) and Ag(I) obtained using phases I and II were ranged 98.9 ± 0.1–99.2 ± 0.05% along with a good precision (RSD% 0.01–0.502%, N = 3) demonstrate the accuracy and validity of the new sorbents for separation and determination of Hg(II) and Ag(I).