Deep eutectic solvent (DES) was used as the extractant to improve the extraction properties of cotton. DES of choline chloride-urea (ChCl-urea) was prepared and immobilized on the surface of cotton fibers. The resulting sorbent was packed on a microcolumn, and a flow injection flame atomic absorption spectrometry was designed for the online separation and determination of trace amounts of copper and nickel. Various parameters affecting the extraction recovery of analytes such as pH, sample volume, sample loading rate, nature, volume, concentration, and flow rate of eluent were investigated and optimized. Under the optimum conditions, the method showed good linearity in the concentration range of 0.25-50.0 and 4.0-125.0 μg L-1 with the coefficient of determination (r 2) of 0.9991 and 0.9990 for copper and nickel, respectively. The method was very sensitive with the detection limits (defined as 3Sb/m) of 0.05 and 0.60 μg L-1 for Cu and Ni, respectively. It was successfully applied for the determination of Cu and Ni in water and biological samples. The accuracy of the method was evaluated through the recovery experiments and independent analysis by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry.
Keywords: Copper; Cotton; Deep eutectic solvent; Nickel; Online solid-phase extraction.