Comparison of the performance of pyridine-functionalized nanoporous silica particles for the extraction of gold(III) from natural samples

We have developed a technique for the solid-phase extraction of gold using various kinds of pyridine-functionalized nanoporous silica prior to its determination in various samples using FAAS. The effects of solution pH, sample and eluent flow rate, sample volume and of potentially interfering ions are compared. The limits of detections vary from 28 to 53 pg mL(-1). The accuracy and precision are between 99.8% and 98.3 % and 0.7 to 1.6 % (RSD), respectively. The method was successfully applied to several standard reference materials.