Abstract

Application of a new water-soluble polyethylenimine polymer sorbent for simultaneous separation and preconcentration of trace amounts of copper and cobalt and their determination by atomic absorption spectrophotometry

Author(s): Ali Jafari, Ali Moghimi

In thiswork, awater-soluble polymer, polyethylenimine (PEI)was used for the simultaneous separation and preconcentration of trace Cu and Co prior to their determination by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. For this purpose, the sample and the PEI solution were mixed and the metalbound polymer was precipitated by adding acetone. The precipitate was separated and dissolved in a minimum amounts of water and aspirated into a flame AAS. By increasing the ratio of the volumes of sample to water used in dissolving the precipitate, the analyte elements were concentrated as needed. The sorption is quantitative in the pH6. Detection limits were 5.6g/L for Cu and 5.8g/L for Co. Thismethod is simple, fast and precise.