Simultaneous preconcentration of cadmium, cobalt and nickel in water samples by cationic micellar precipitation and their determination by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry

Abstract In the present study an easy micellar precipitation process at ambient temperature using cationic surfactant cetyl-trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was applied to the simultaneous extraction of cadmium, cobalt and nickel from aqueous samples. The analytical procedure involved the complex formation of these cations with 1,8-dihydroxyanthrone as a chelating agent in buffer media of pH 7.0. After the phase separation, the precipitated complexes were first dissolved in 0.25 mL of 80:20 propanol–water mixture containing 0.03 mL HNO3 and then subjected to the inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) analysis. The concentration of 1,8-dihydroxyanthrone, pH, amount of CTAB and centrifuge time was optimized. Under the optimum conditions, the preconcentration factor was 40 and the improvement factors of 11.6, 9.5 and 14.4 with detection limits of 0.008, 0.009 and 0.004 (ng mL− 1) were obtained for Cd, Co and Ni respectively. Under the presence of foreign ions no significant interference was observed. Finally, the proposed extraction method was successfully applied to the determination of these elements in various water and geological CRM samples with recovery percentages of 97–104% and RSD values of 1.87–2.36%.