Preconcentration of bismuth(III) and copper(II) by solid-phase extraction and subsequent determination by differential pulse polarography

A differential pulse polarographic method is proposed for the trace determination of bismuth and copper from large volumes of aqueous samples after adsorption of their 1-(2-thiazolylazo)-2-naphthol complexes onto microcrystalline naphthalene in the pH ranges of 7.2-9.0 and 4.0-7.8, respectively. Bismuth and copper are desorbed from microcrystalline naphthalene with 9 mL 1M HCl. Well-defined peaks are obtained at Ep = -0.09 and -0.20 V versus a saturated calomel electrode, in an HCl-isoquinoline medium as the supporting electrolyte, for bismuth and copper, respectively. Bismuth is reduced reversibly with a 3-electron change, whereas copper is reduced irreversibly under these conditions. The detection limits are 55 ng/mL for bismuth and 91 ng/mL for copper. Linearity is maintained in the concentration ranges of 0.18-13.5 and 0.30-17.3 microg/mL for bismuth and copper, respectively, with corresponding correlation coefficients of 0.9996 and 0.9885. The relative standard deviations are 1.0% for bismuth at 2.0 microg/mL and 1.4% for copper at 5.0 microg/mL. Various parameters were optimized to develop conditions for the determination of these metal ions in various samples.