A green analytical procedure for sensitive and selective determination of antimony in environmental and biological samples by ligandless cloud point extraction.

A very simple, environmental friendly and sensitive method based on the cloud point extraction (CPE) separation and spectrophotometric detection has been developed for the determination of antimony. The method is founded on the color reaction of Sb (III) with iodide in acidic medium and subsequent micelle-mediated extraction of the product using the non-ionic surfactant, Triton X-114, in the absence of any chelating agent. The Effects of reaction and extraction parameters were studied and optimum conditions were established. The calibration graph was linear in the range of 0.80-95 ng mL-1 of antimony in the initial solution with r = 0.9994 (n = 9). Detection limit based on three times the standard deviation of the blank (3Sb) was 0.23 ng mL-1 and the relative standard deviation (R.S.D.) for 10 and 70 ng mL-1 of antimony were 3.32 and 1.85% (n = 8), respectively. The proposed method was compared with other methods and favorably applied to evaluate this metal in some real samples, including seawater, antileishmanial drug (glucantime) and human serum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]