Determination of the Trace Refractory Elements V, Nb and Ta in Environmental Samples by ICP-MS After Separation and Preconcentration with Nanometre-Sized Alumina Microcolumns Following Chemical Modification by Gallic Acid |
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| Authors: | Xuli Pu Chaozhang Huang Bin Hu Zucheng Jiang |
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| Institution: | Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P.R. China |
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| Abstract: | Nanometre-sized alumina was chemically modified with gallic acid (GA) and used as a solid phase adsorption material for the determination of trace amounts of V, Nb and Ta in natural water, soil and stream sediment samples by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. The effects of pH, sample flow rate and volume, elution solution and interfering ions on the recovery of the analytes were investigated. The results showed that V, Nb and Ta could be adsorbed at pH 4.0 and recovered with 1 ml of 2.0 mol l-1 HCl. Under optimised conditions, the adsorption capacity of GA-modified nanometre-sized Al2O3 was found to be 7.0, 8.9, 13.3 mg g-1 for V, Nb and Ta, respectively. The limits of detection were as low as 0.25, 0.24 and 0.66 ng l-1 for V, Nb and Ta, respectively with a concentration factor of fifty. The recovery of V, Nb and Ta for spiked water samples was between 85.7 and 116%. The developed method has also been applied to the determination of trace V, Nb and Ta in soil and stream sediment certified materials, and the determined values were in a good agreement with the certified values. |
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| Keywords: | nanometre-sized alumina gallic acid inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry V Nb Ta solid phase extraction environmental samples |
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