Preparation and evaluation of an ion imprinted sol-gel material for selective solid-phase extraction of Ni(II)

An ion imprinted silica sorbent was prepared using a sol-gel process for selective extraction of Ni(II) ions from water samples. Bis(dibenzoylmethanto)nickel(II) complex was used as template; phenyltrimethoxysilane and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane as functional monomers and tetraethylorthosilicate as reticulating agent. The material was packed in solid-phase extraction (SPE) column. The effect of sampling volume, elution conditions, sample pH and sample flow rate on the extraction of Ni ions from water samples were studied. The relative selectivity coefficients of imprinted sorbent for Ni(II)/Co(II), Ni(II)/Cu(II) and Ni(II)/Cd(II) were 23.7, 30.3 and 24.4, times greater than non-imprinted sorbent, respectively. The relative standard deviation of the eight replicate determinations of Ni(II) was 4.2%. The detection limit was 0.9 g L-1 using flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The developed method was successfully applied to the determination of trace nickel in water samples.