Carbon nanostructures for separation, preconcentration and speciation of metal ions

Novel carbon-based nanomaterials with unique properties find increasing use in analytical science. This article presents an up-to-date overview of recent applications of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), metal oxide-CNT nanocomposites and carbon-encapsulated magnetic nanoparticles for enrichment and separation of metal ions, and speciation. The sorption mechanism appears to be mainly attributable to chemical interactions between metal ions and the functional groups on the surface. I address the effects of surface oxidation and chemical functionalization, sorption capacities and process parameters, and discuss the application of these new nanomaterials to metal speciation.