Ionic liquid coated magnetic core/shell CoFe2O4@SiO2 nanoparticles for the separation/analysis of trace gold in water sample

A new ionic liquid functionalized magnetic silica nanoparticle was synthesized and characterized and tested as an adsorbent. The adsorbent was used for magnetic solid phase extraction on ICP-MS method. Simultaneous determination of precious metal Au has been addressed. The method is simple and fast and has been applied to standard water and surface water analysis. A new method for separation/analysis of trace precious metal Au by Magnetron Solid Phase Extraction (MSPE) combined with ICP-MS. The element to be tested is rapidly adsorbed on CoFe2O4@SiO2@[BMIM]PF6 composite nano-adsorbent and eluted with thiourea. The method has a preconcentration factor of 9.5-fold. This method has been successfully applied to the determination of gold in actual water samples. Hydrophobic Ionic Liquids (ILs) 1-butyl-3-methylimidazole hexafluorophosphate ([BMIM]PF6) coated CoFe2O4@SiO2 nanoparticles with core-shell structure to prepare magnetic solid phase extraction agent (CoFe2O4@SiO2@ILs) and establish a new method of MSPE coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for separation/analysis of trace gold. The results showed that trace gold was adsorbed rapidly by CoFe2O4@SiO2@[BMIM]PF6 and eluanted by thiourea. Under the optimal conditions, preconcentration factor of the proposed method was 9.5-fold. The linear range, detection limit, correlation coefficient (R) and relative standard deviation (RSD) were found to be 0.01~1000.00 ng mL-1, 0.001 ng mL-1, 0.9990 and 3.4% (n=11, c=4.5 ng mL-1). The CoFe2O4@SiO2 nanoparticles could be used repeatedly for 8 times. This proposed method has been successfully applied to the determination of trace gold in water samples.