Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction using diethyldithiocarbamate as a chelating agent and the dried-spot technique for the determination of Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Se and Pb by energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry

Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) using sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC) as a chelating agent was investigated for the simultaneous determination of iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, selenium and lead ions in water samples. The procedure was performed using 5 mL of the sample, 100 mu L of a 0.5% solution of DDTC, 30 mu L of carbon tetrachloride (extraction phase) and 500 mu L of methanol (disperser solvent). The experiments showed that Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn and Pb can be simultaneously extracted at a pH of 5 and that Se can be extracted at a pH of 2-3. The results were compared with those obtained using ammonium pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate as a chelating agent. For all analytes, a linear range was observed up to 0.4 mu g mL(-1). If Fe and Zn are present in concentrations 10 times higher than those of the other analytes, then the linearity is observed up to 0.2 mu g mL(-1). In the present study, the organic phase that contained preconcentrated elements was deposited onto a Millipore filter and measured using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. The obtained detection limits were 2.9, 1.5, 2.0, 2.3, 2.5, 2.0 and 3.9 ng mL(-1) for Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Se and Pb, respectively. This combination of DLLME and the dried-spot technique is promising for multielement analyses using other spectroscopy techniques, such as laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy or total-reflection X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.