Multiwalled carbon nanotubes as a sorbent material for the solid phase extraction of lead from urine and subsequent determination by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

Autor: Carlos Herrero Latorre, Sagrario García Martín, Julia Barciela García, Jennifer Álvarez Méndez, Rosa María Peña Crecente, Carlha Gutiérrez Lovera
Rok vydání: 2014
Předmět:
Zdroj: Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy. 101:15-20
ISSN: 0584-8547
Popis: The determination of lead in urine is a way of monitoring the chemical exposure to this metal. In the present paper, a new method for the Pb determination by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) in urine at low levels has been developed. Lead was separated from the undesirable urine matrix by means of a solid phase extraction (SPE) procedure. Oxidized multiwalled carbon nanotubes have been used as a sorbent material. Lead from urine was retained at pH 4.0 and was quantitatively eluted using a 0.7 M nitric acid solution and was subsequently measured by ETAAS. The effects of parameters that influence the adsorption-elution process (such as pH, eluent volume and concentration, sampling and elution flow rates) and the atomic spectrometry conditions have been studied by means of different factorial design strategies. Under the optimized conditions, the detection and quantification limits obtained were 0.08 and 0.26 μg Pb L- 1, respectively. The results demonstrate the absence of a urine matrix effect and this is the consequence of the SPE process carried out. Therefore, the developed method is useful for the analysis of Pb at low levels in real samples without the influence of other urine components. The proposed method was applied to the determination of lead in urine samples of unexposed healthy people and satisfactory results were obtained (in the range 3.64-22.9 μg Pb L- 1). © 2014 Elsevier B.V.
Databáze: OpenAIRE