Selective quantification of trace palladium in road dusts and roadside soils by displacement solid-phase extraction online coupled with electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

There is a growing concern about the effect of palladium on human health because of the toxicity and increasing occurrence of palladium as a result of its extensive use in automotive catalytic converters. Development of reliable analytical methodologies for the determination of palladium in environmental materials is of great importance for critical evaluation of the possible risks for human health. In this work, a displacement solid-phase extraction technique was developed and online coupled to electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) for selective and sensitive determination of trace palladium in environmental samples without need of any special selective complexing agents, selective sorbents, and masking agents. The developed methodology involved the online formation of copper pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (Cu-PDC), and the resultant Cu-PDC was extracted onto a microcolumn packed with the sorbent from a cigarette filter. Trace Pd(II) was selectively preconcentrated through loading the sample solution onto the microcolumn by online displacement reaction between Pd(II) and the extracted Cu-PDC on the microcolumn. The retained analyte was subsequently eluted with 40 microL of ethanol for online ETAAS determination. Interferences from coexisting heavy metal ions with lower stability of their PDC complexes relative to Cu-PDC were minimized. The tolerable concentrations of Cd-(II), Fe(III), Co(II), Mn(II), Cr(III), and Zn(II) were up to 2, 6, 40, 2, 1.5, and at least 100 mg L(-1), respectively. Compared with conventional solid-phase extraction methodology, the developed displacement solid-phase extraction protocol gave 2-4 orders of magnitude improvement in the maximum tolerable concentrations of coexisting heavy metal ions. With the consumption of only 2.8 mL of sample solution, an enhancement factor of 52 and a detection limit (3sigma) of 18 ng L(-1) were achieved at a sample throughput of 30 samples h(-1). The precision (RSD, n = 13) was 2.5% at the 1 microg L(-1) level. The present methodology was successfully applied to selective determination of trace palladium in local road dusts and roadside soils.