PRECONCENTRATION OF COPPER FROM SYNTHETIC AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS USING MULTIWALLED CARBON NANOTUBES

Sa？etak The determination of heavy metal contents in various components of the environment is very important in the context of environmental protection. In laboratory practice often happens that the determination of trace and ultra-trace contents of heavy metals in natural aqueous samples by available method is not sufficient with respect of required accuracy. In such cases it is necessary to include appropriate treatment of the samples prior to their analysis. For the purpose of preconcentration of the trace metal content the solid phase extraction (SPE) is often used. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are considered to be suitable sorbent material enabling increase the separation and preconcentration efficiency of SPE over other conventional silica-based sorbents. This work includes the evaluation of experimental conditions (pH of sample solution, content of the analyte, method used for CNTs oxidation and amount of solid sorbent) used in SPE-CNT preconcentration of copper from synthetic aqueous solutions