Enrichment of lead by membrane filtration technique and its determination by atomic absorption spectrometry

In this study, a new separation-enrichment technique has been applied for the quantitative determination of the lead(II) at trace levels in various environmental samples with Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (FAAS). Chelating agent 4- (2-Pyridylazo) resorcinol (PAR) impregnated into the filter paper used for the membrane filtration apparatus, instead of being added to the analyte solution. The optimal conditions for separation-preconcentration procedure with the new membrane filtration technique has been determined by examining of the effects of various experimental parameters such as pH of solution, sample volume, amount of chlating agent, addition rate of the solution, structure of the membrane filter and the recovery solution by using model solutions. Then, quantitative determination is made under optimal conditions by using High Resolution Continous Source Flame Atomic Absorbtion Spectrometry (HR CS-FAAS). It was also investigated the efficiency, limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification (LOQ), accuracy and precision for the applied method. The presented procedure was applied to natural water samples.