A selective electromembrane extraction of uranium (VI) prior to its fluorometric determination in water

• A method for fast and selective extraction of U6+ prior to fluorometric analysis.
• Sample clean-up of U6+ water samples was done by electromembrane extraction (EME).
• EME eliminated interfering effects of Zn2+, Cd2+, Ni2+, Co2+, Cu2+ and Cl− ions.
• EME reduced interfering effects of Mn2+, Fe3+ and PO43−, considerably.

A novel method for the selective electromembrane extraction (EME) of U6+ prior to fluorometric determination has been proposed. The effect of extraction conditions including supported liquid membrane (SLM) composition, extraction time and extraction voltage were investigated. An SLM composition of 1% di-2-ethyl hexyl phosphonic acid in nitrophenyl octyl ether (NPOE) showed good selectivity, recovery and enrichment factor. The best performance was achieved at an extraction potential of 80 volts and an extraction time of 14 minutes Under the optimized conditions, a linear range from 1 to 1000 ng mL−1 and LOD of 0.1 ng mL−1 were obtained for the determination of U6+. The EME method showed good performance in sample cleanup and the reduction of the interfering effects of Mn2+, Zn2+, Cd2+, Ni2+, Fe3+, Co2+, Cu2+, Cl− and PO43− ions during fluorometric determination of uranium in real water samples. The recoveries above 54% and enrichment factors above 64.7 were obtained by the proposed method for real sample analysis.

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