Adsorption of cadmium(II) ions from aqueous solution on exfoliated graphene nanosheets and its determination by flame atomic absorption spectrometry

In this study, we investigated the enrichment ability of exfoliated graphene nanosheets for determination of trace cadmium in water and vegetable samples with flame atomic absorption spectrometry. Various experimental parameters that could affect the extraction efficiency have been investigated. Under the optimum conditions, the enrichment factor of the method for the target analyte was 100. A liner response was achieved in the concentration range of 0.3-28.8 ng mL(-1). The detection limit and precision of the method were 0.2 ng mL(-1) and 0.8%, respectively. The proposed method was applied to determine the cadmium in water, onion, and tomato samples and recoveries of target analyte were in the range 97.6%-98.5%. All of these experimental results indicated that this new procedure could be applied for the determination of trace cadmium in real samples.