Sequential extraction of platinum, cisplatin and carboplatin from environmental samples and pre-concentration/separation using vesicular coacervative extraction and determination by continuum source ETAAS

•A sequential separation and pre-concentration of platinum, cisplatin and carboplatin from soil is reported using different acid concentrations/digestions.•A CPE procedure is reported to separate platinum from cancerostatic platinum species such as cisplatin and carboplatin from water.•The head groups of cationic vesicles are used for the extraction of PtCl62− without using any chelating agent.•The temperature independent extraction of PtCl62− with vesicles is achieved for the first time in the cloud point extraction procedures.

A sequential extraction procedure is developed for the separation of trace levels of hexachloroplatinate, cisplatin and carboplatin from soil, which are then, pre-concentrated using a vesicular coacervative cloud point extraction method prior to their determination as platinum by continuum source ETAAS. Sequential extraction of carboplatin, cisplatin and hexachloroplatinate from a specific red soil is achieved by using the 20% HCl, aqua regia at room temperature and by combination of aqua regia and HF with microwave digestion, respectively. The pre-concentration of these species from the extracted solutions is based on the formation of extractable hydrophobic complexes of PtCl62− anionic species with free cationic head groups solubilizing sites of the Triton X-114 co-surfactant stabilized TOMAC (tri-octyl methyl ammonium chloride) vesicles through electrostatic attraction. This process separates the platinum from bulk aqueous solution into a small vesicular rich phase. The parameters affecting the extraction procedures are optimized. Under the optimized conditions, the achieved pre-concentration factor is 20 and detection limit is 0.5 ng g−1 for soil and 0.02 ng mL−1 for water samples. The spiked recoveries of hexachloroplatinate, cisplatin and carboplatin in water and soil extracts in the vesicular coacervative extraction are in the range of 96–102% at 0.5–1 ng mL−1 with relative standard deviation of 1–3%. The accuracy of the method for platinum determination is evaluated by analyzing CCRMP PTC-1a copper–nickel sulfide concentrate and BCR 723 road dust certified reference materials and the obtained results agreed with the certified values with 95% confidence level of student t-test. The results were also compared to mixed-micelle (MM)-CPE method reported in the literature [22].