Use of Nanoporous Cu(II) Ion Imprinted Polymer as a New Sorbent for Preconcentration of Cu(II) in Water, Biological, and Agricultural Samples and its Determination by Electrothermal Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

Abstract

Abstract A new and selective Cu(II) ion imprinted polymer was prepared by formation of 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol complex for selective extraction and preconcentration of Cu ions. Polymerization was performed with ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as a crosslinking monomer and methacrylic acid as a functional monomer in the presence of 2,2′-azobis(isobutyronitrile) as an initiator via a bulk polymerization method. The Cu(II) imprinted polymeric particles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and IR spectrometry. The imprint Cu ion was removed from the polymeric matrix using 2 M HNO3. Optimum pH for maximum sorption was 5–8. Maximum sorbent capacity and the enrichment factor for Cu(II) were 11.3 mg/g and 100, respectively. The RSD and LOD of the method were evaluated as ±4.3% and 8.7 ng/L, respectively. The proposed method is simple, highly selective, and sensitive and can be applied to the determination of ultratrace amounts of Cu in water, biological, and agricultural samples.