Simultaneous preconcentration of cadmium, cobalt and nickel in water samples by cationic micellar precipitation and their determination by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry

► This work is a precise, sensitive and selective analytical procedure for simultaneous preconcentration and determination of Cd, Co and Ni in water samples based on cationic micellar precipitation (CMP) coupled with ICP-AES system. ► The extraction was performed in the absence of any extracting agents and only anthralin along with CTAB were used as chelating and precipitating agents respectively. ► A comparison of the proposed method with the previously extraction methods indicates that the proposed method is much simpler and faster and better analytical characteristics. ► The results of this study show the potentiality and versatility of this method, which could be successfully applied to the determination of trace amounts of these cations in various real samples (including water and geological CRM samples). ► Finally, to the best of our knowledge this extraction technique has not been reported in the literature and it is used for the first time with lower LODs.