Disruption of a three-component solution as a novel strategy for Cu and Ni extraction from vegetable oils for their determination by GF AAS.

In this work, we propose a novel approach for extracting Cu and Ni from vegetable oils (which can be expanded to other metals). The method is based on the transference of the analytes to an aqueous acid phase due to the disruption of a three-component solution. The extraction was carried out in two steps. In the first step, a three-component solution was prepared comprising the sample, 1-octanol, and HNO3 solution. Next, the homogeneous system was disrupted by adding 1.0 mL of deionized water, and two phases were formed. The aqueous extract deposited in the bottom of the flask was collected with a micropipette, and Cu and Ni were determined by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GF AAS). The developed method presented limits of quantification (LOQ) of 0.25 and 0.17 ng g-1 for Cu and Ni, respectively, and was successfully applied in the analysis of eleven oil samples from different origins.

Adsorption of the herbicides diquat and difenzoquat on polyurethane foam: Kinetic, equilibrium and computational studies.

This work reports a study about the adsorption of the herbicides diquat and difenzoquat from aqueous medium employing polyurethane foam (PUF) as the adsorbent and sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) as the counter ion. The adsorption efficiency was shown to be dependent on the concentration of SDS in solution, since the formation of an ion-associate between cationic herbicides (diquat and difenzoquat) and anionic dodecylsulfate is a fundamental step of the process. A computational study was carried out to identify the possible structure of the ion-associates that are formed in solution. They are probably formed by three units of dodecylsulfate bound to one unit of diquat, and two units of dodecylsulfate bound to one unit of difenzoquat. The results obtained also showed that 95% of both herbicides present in 45mL of a solution containing 5.5mgL-1 could be retained by 300mg of PUF. The experimental data were well adjusted to the Freundlich isotherm (r2 ≥ 0.95) and to the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation. Also, the application of Morris-Weber and Reichenberg equations indicated that an intraparticle diffusion process is active in the control of adsorption kinetics.

Polyurethane foam loaded with sodium dodecylsulfate for the extraction of 'quat' pesticides from aqueous medium: Optimization of loading conditions.

The cationic herbicides paraquat, diquat and difenzoquat are largely used in different cultures worldwide. With this, there is an intrinsic risk of environmental contamination when these herbicides achieve natural waters. The goal of this work was to propose a novel and low-cost sorbent for the removal of the cited herbicides from aqueous medium. The proposed sorbent was prepared by loading polyurethane foam with sodium dodecylsulfate. The influence of several parameters (SDS concentration, HCl concentration and shaking time) on the loading process was investigated. The results obtained in this work demonstrated that all studied variables influenced the loading process, having significant effect on the extraction efficiency of the resulted PUF-SDS. At optimized conditions, the PUF was loaded by shaking 200mg of crushed foam with 200mL of a solution containing 5.0×10(-3)molL(-1) SDS and 0.25molL(-1) HCl, for 30min. The obtained PUF-SDS was efficient for removing the three herbicides from aqueous medium, achieving extraction percentages higher than 90%. The sorption process followed a pseudo second-order kinetics, which presented excellent predictive capacity of the amount of herbicide retained with time.

Sorption of the herbicides diquat and difenzoquat from aqueous medium by polymeric resins in the presence of sodium dodecylsulfate: Kinetic and mechanistic study.

The goal of this work was to propose a novel method for the solid-phase extraction of the herbicides diquat (DQT(2+)) and difenzoquat (DFQT(+)) from aqueous medium using polymeric Amberlite XAD-2 and XAD-4 resins in the presence of sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS). The addition of SDS to the medium was of fundamental importance in order to allow the formation of a negatively charged surface able to sorb the cationic solutes. Several factors that could influence the sorption process, such as SDS concentration in the medium, sorbent mass, pH, ionic strength, and initial concentration of the solutes were investigated. Kinetic studies were also performed to model the system and to identify the mechanisms that operate the sorption process of the herbicides. SDS concentration in the medium presented remarkable influence on the extraction efficiency, achieving maximum values when the ratios [SDS]/[herbicide] were approximately 90, for XAD-2, and 22 and 11 for DQT(2+) and DFQT(+), respectively, for XAD-4. The sorption process followed a pseudo second-order kinetic in all cases studied. It was also found that an intraparticle diffusion process controlled exclusively the sorption of the herbicides by the Amberlite XAD-2 and XAD-4 resins in the first 15 min, becoming less active with time.

Speciation of inorganic antimony (III & V) employing polyurethane foam loaded with bromopyrogallol red.

In this work, the speciation analysis of inorganic antimony (Sb(III) and Sb(V)) is proposed using polyurethane foam loaded with bromopyrogallol red (PUF-BPR) as a selective sorbent for Sb(III). The quantification of Sb in the solutions was performed by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GF AAS), and several variables that could affect the performance of the method were carefully evaluated. The best conditions for the sorption of Sb(III) were achieved by shaking 50mg of PUF-BPR with the solutions containing Sb(III) at pH 4.0 for 90 min. In this condition, the retention of Sb(V) was not significant, whereas the removal of Sb(III) from the solution was higher than 95%. The desorption of Sb(III) from loaded PUF-BPR was possible by shaking the loaded foam with 7.5 mL of a 2.5 mol L(-1) HNO3 solution for 30 min. No interference of metal cations was observed on the solid-phase extraction of Sb(III) by PUF-BPR. The developed method was applied in the speciation analysis of antimony in river water samples fortified with different concentrations of Sb(III) and Sb(V). Also, we performed the determination of Sb(III) in a sample of a Sb-based drug utilized in the treatment of leishmaniasis. The results show that Sb(III) can be separated from high concentrations of Sb(V), since recoveries in the range of 81-110% were obtained in the analysis of the samples. The method presented limits of detection and quantification of 0.6 and 2 µg L(-1), respectively, for Sb(III) and 1 and 3 µg L(-1) for Sb(V), respectively.

Modeling, kinetic, and equilibrium characterization of paraquat adsorption onto polyurethane foam using the ion-pairing technique.

We studied the adsorption of paraquat onto polyurethane foam (PUF) when it was in a medium containing sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS). The adsorption efficiency was dependent on the concentration of SDS in solution, because the formation of an ion-associate between the cationic paraquat and the dodecylsulfate anion was found to be a fundamental step in the process. A computational study was carried out to identify the possible structure of the ion-associate in aqueous medium. The obtained data demonstrated that the structure is probably formed from four units of dodecylsulfate bonded to one paraquat moiety. The results showed that 94% of the paraquat present in 45 mL of a solution containing 3.90 × 10(-5) mol L(-1) could be retained by 300 mg of PUF, resulting in the removal of 2.20 mg of paraquat. The experimental data were reasonably adjusted to the Freundlich isotherm and to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Also, the application of Morris-Weber and Reichenberg models indicated that both film-diffusion and intraparticle-diffusion processes were active during the control of the adsorption kinetics.