Selective electromembrane extraction and sensitive colorimetric detection of copper(II)

Abstract

Abstract In this study, an extremely effective electromembrane extraction (EME) method was developed for the selective extraction of Cu(II) followed by Red-Green-Blue (RGB) detection. The effective parameters optimized for the extraction efficiency of EME include applied voltage, extraction time, supported liquid membrane (SLM) composition, pH of acceptor/donor phases, and stirring rate. Under optimized conditions, Cu(II) was extracted from a 3 mL aqueous donor phase to 8 µL of 100 mM HCl acceptor solution through 1-octanol SLM using an applied voltage of 50 V for 15 min. The proposed method provides a working range of 0.1–0.75 µg·mL−1 with 0.03 µg·mL−1 limit for detection. Finally, the developed technique was applied to different environmental water samples for monitoring environmental pollution. Obtained relative recoveries were within the range of 93–106%. The relative standard deviation (RSD) and enhancement factor (EF) were found to be ≤4.8% and 100 respectively. We hope that this method can be introduced for quantitative determination of Cu(II) as a fast, simple, portable, inexpensive, effective, and precise procedure.