Development of a dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction technique for ultra-sensitive detection of gold in environmental samples using atomic absorption spectrometry

The work examines the determination of gold from environmental samples by dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME) method. The method was developed for the separation and determination of Au (III) ions after chelating with bis (salicylaldehyde) ethylenediimine (H₂SA₂en) Schiff-base as derivatizing reagent. Flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) techniques were used for quantitation of Au (III). These techniques are sensitive and rapid for the determination of gold concentrations in ore, water and sediment samples. The influence of factors such as pH, reagent concentration, solvents (extracting) (disperser) and solvent volumes on extraction efficiency of Au (III) ions were studied and optimized by univariate and multivariate techniques. The linearity of the method was in the range of 2 to 12 µg/L with R² = 0.997. The limit of detection was 1 µg/L, and the limit of quantification was 3 µg/L. The preconcentration factor and enrichment factor values were 44 and 47. The repeatability (the intra-day) and reproducibility (the inter-day) precisions (n = 3) were found to be 0.417–3.56%. The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of gold in sediment samples of the Indus River, Kori Barrage, goldsmith water, acidic solution of goldsmith and ornament samples collected from Goldsmith Labs and shops. The results found from FAAS were compared with those obtained from ICP-OES technique, and a good correlation with comparable selectivity and sensitivity was specified.