Tris(2-Aminoethyl)Amine-Functionalized Fe3O4 Magnetic Nanoparticles as a Selective Sorbent for Separation of Silver and Gold Ions in Different pHs

The usage of tris(2-aminoethyl)amine-functionalized Fe3O4 nanoparticles as a novel magnetic sorbent for rapid extraction, preconcentration, and determination of trace amounts of silver and gold ions was investigated. The optimum conditions for sample pH, eluent parameters (type, concentration and volume) were obtained. The effect of various cationic interferences on the adsorption of silver and gold was evaluated. The analytical efficiency values of both silver and gold ions were higher than 98.0% in the optimum conditions. The limits of detection (LOD) were less than 0.8 and 0.5 ng mL−1 for silver and gold, respectively. The linear ranges for silver and gold were 1.5–1000 ng mL−1 and 1.0–1000 ng mL−1 respectively. The maximum capacity of the modified magnetic nanoparticles was more than 97.3 mg g−1 and 167 mg g−1 for silver, and gold ions, respectively. The presented method was used to determine silver and gold ions in real samples. Finally, the method accuracy was confirmed by standard reference materials.