Development of 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol-modified polymeric membranes for the effective batch pre-concentration and determination of zinc traces with flame atomic absorption spectrometry

The development of 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol (PAN)-modified polymeric membranes for the effective batch pre-concentration and determination of zinc traces with flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) is described. The method is based on the chemical bonding of the metal species with a suitable ligand, which has been immobilized into a water-insoluble cellulose acetate (CA) membrane followed by simple rinsing of the chelating agent–metal complex with an acidified methanolic solution. The latter is directly aspirated to the nebulizer of a FAA spectrophotometer without any other treatment. As an analytical demonstration, trace concentrations of Zn(II) were successfully detected in real samples, such as seawater, river and lake water, wastewater as well as in a reference material, without any laborious and time-consuming treatment. Several working parameters were investigated. A pre-concentration factor of 100 was achieved by simple immersing of a circular piece of the CA–PAN membrane (0.6 cm diameter) in the tested samples for 30 min at room temperature. The analytical curve was rectilinear up to 30 μg l−1 zinc with detection limit of 0.7 μg l−1, a quantitation limit of 2.0 μg l−1 and a relative standard deviation lower than 2%.