Preparation, characterization and application of Saussurea tridactyla Sch-Bip as green adsorbents for preconcentration of rare earth elements in environmental water samples

This paper deals with preparation, characterization and application of the Saussurea tridactyla Sch-Bip (STSB) as a new green adsorbent for separation of matrix elements and preconcentration of rare earth elements (REEs) in environmental water samples. The pretreated STSB adsorbent with 2 mol L-1 NaOH is characterized with higher surface area and adsorption capacities in comparison with a raw STSB material. The new adsorbent was used for the development of on-line solid phase extraction (SPE) for the determination of REEs by radial viewing 27 MHz inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Various parameters affecting the adsorption/desorption procedure were optimized. The adsorption capacities for the STSB were found to be 62.2 (Y)-153 mg g(-1) (Tm). Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection (LODs, 3 sigma) for REEs were in the range of 0.06 (Yb)-8.77 (Sm) ng mL(-1). The relative standard deviations (RSDs) for 7 replicate determinations of target REE5 at low concentration level ranged from 2.4 (Yb) to 8.9 (Sm)%. The adsorption isotherm fitted Langmuir model and the adsorption kinetics fitted well with both Pseudo-first order and Pseudo-second order models. The predominant adsorption mechanism is ion exchange. The STSB pretreated with 2 mol L-1 NaOH has been demonstrated to be low cost, green and environment friendly adsorbent, featuring with high adsorption capacity, wide pH range, and fast adsorption/desorption kinetics for target REEs with long lifetime. The proposed method was applied to the determination of REEs in East Lake, Yangtze River and rain water samples. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.