The study of applicability of dithiocarbamate-coated fullerene C60 for preconcentration of palladium for graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometric determination in environmental samples

The present method comprises an off-line enrichment of Pd on the fullerene, C60, coated with ammonium pyrrolidinedithiocarbamate (APDC), followed by the elution of formed Pd-chelate with ethanol and the subsequent determination of Pd from the eluate by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. By using fullerene loaded with 0.1% APDC, the analytical system is simplified as the sample can be directly preconcentrated on the column. The following parameters affecting the preconcentration of Pd on C60 were optimized: amount of ligand used for the coating of fullerene, sample pH, kind of eluent, sample and eluent flow rates, volume and number of fractions of eluent used. The sorption efficiency for Pd on coated fullerene was 99.2±1.1%. The best elution efficiency for Pd from the column was obtained with 0.6 ml of ethanol at a flow rate of 0.2 ml min−1. The limit of detection was 0.044 ng ml−1. The effect of sample pretreatment procedure on the preconcentration of Pd by evaluated method is discussed. The content of Pd in road dust (179.2±17.4 ng g−1) determined by proposed method was in agreement with the results obtained with a reference method. The low recovery of analyte (64%) was obtained for geological material CRM SARM-7 (platinum ore) due to the much higher concentration of interfering elements.