The quick determination of trace quantities of cationic species by simple methods is of vital importance in chemical, environmental and industrial analyses. Potentiometric sensors based on solvent polymeric membranes with the incorporation of neutral ionophores have been shown to be very useful tools for these purposes, due to their ease of preparation, simple operation, relatively fast response, reasonable selectivity, wide linear dynamic range and low cost. [1][2][3][4][5] Due to the urgent need for selective copper determinations in many biological, 6,7 geochemical, 8 environmental and industrial samples, 9 the search for new sensitive and selective polymeric membrane sensors for its fast monitoring is still a challenging objective. 4 19 In recent years, we have successfully employed a number of new 9,10-anthraquinone derivatives as very suitable ion carriers in bulk liquid membrane transport 20 and the solid-phase extraction of metal ions, 21,22 in constructing of PVC-membrane ion-selective electrodes [23][24][25] and in stripping voltammetric analysis of lead ion. 26 In this paper we report on highly selective and sensitive solvent polymeric membrane (PME) and membrane-coated graphite electrodes (CGE) for Cu 2+ ion based on 1-hydroxy-2-(prop-2′-enyl)-4-(prop-2′-enyloxy)-9,10-anthraquinone (AQ), recently synthesized in our laboratories, 27 that manifest the properties of an excellent neutral ionophore for copper(II) ions.
Experimental
ReagentsReagent-grade 2-nitrophenyl octyl ether (NPOE), benzyl acetate (BA) sodium tetraphenylborate (NaTPB), oleic acid (OA), high relative molecular weight PVC and tetrahydrofuran (THF) were purchased from Merck chemical company and used as received. The nitrate salts of the cations used (all from Merck) were of the highest purity available, and used without any further purification, except for vacuum drying over P2O5. Anthraquinone AQ was synthesized and purified as described New polymeric membrane (PME) and coated graphite (CGE) copper(II)-selective electrodes based on 1-hydroxy-2-(prop-2′-enyl)-4-(prop-2′-enyloxy)-9,10-anthraquinone were prepared. The electrodes reveal linear emf-pCu 2+ responses over wide concentration ranges (1.0 × 10 -5 -1.0 × 10 -1 M with a slope of 27.3 mV decade -1 for PME and 8.0 × 10 -8 -5.0 × 10 -2 M with a slope of 29.1 mV decade -1 for CGE) and very low limits of detection (8.0 × 10 -6 M for PME and 5.0 × 10 -8 M for CGE). The potentiometric response is independent of the pH of the test solution in the pH range 3.0 -6.0. The proposed electrodes possess very good selectivities over a wide variety of other cations, including alkali, alkaline earth, transition and heavy metal ions, the selectivity coefficients for the CGE being much improved over those for the PME. The electrodes were used as indicator electrodes in the potentiometric titration of Cu 2+ and in the recovery of copper ions from wastewater.