Selective electromembrane extraction and sensitive colorimetric detection of copper(II)

In this study, an extremely effective electromembrane extraction (EME) method was developed for the selective extraction of Cu(II) followed by Red-Green-Blue (RGB) detection. The effective parameters optimized for the extraction efficiency of EME include applied voltage, extraction time, supported liquid membrane (SLM) composition, pH of acceptor/donor phases, and stirring rate. Under optimized conditions, Cu(II) was extracted from a 3 mL aqueous donor phase to 8 μL of 100 mM HCl acceptor solution through 1-octanol SLM using an applied voltage of 50 V for 15 min. The proposed method provides a working range of 0.1-0.75 μg·mL-1 with 0.03 μg·mL-1 limit for detection. Finally, the developed technique was applied to different environmental water samples for monitoring environmental pollution. Obtained relative recoveries were within the range of 93-106%. The relative standard deviation (RSD) and enhancement factor (EF) were found to be ≤4.8% and 100 respectively. We hope that this method can be introduced for quantitative determination of Cu(II) as a fast, simple, portable, inexpensive, effective, and precise procedure.