Zinc is frequently present at trace level in cadmium and their compounds . However, the spectrophotometric determination of this element in these matrices is troublesome because many of the chromogenic reagents proposed also react with cadmium.
Numerous methods have been published for such determination. However, they are not sim- ple and usually require extensive and laborious steps for the separation of zinc from cadmium, using procedures which involve: liquid – liquid extraction [1 – 6] of zinc or cadmium, ion ex- change [7,8], and precipitation [9].
This paper proposes a method for the sepa- ration and determination of zinc in cadmium matrices based on solid-phase extraction (SPE) of zinc in the form of thiocyanate complexes by the polyurethane foam (PU foam).
The PU foam has been used as a solid sor- bent on a wide variety of inorganic and organic compounds from different media. It was first proposed by Bowen [10] in 1970. Braun [11–13] and Palagyi [14] have described reviews about the use of PU foam in procedures of separation and preconcentration.
The use of PU foam for zinc extraction has been proposed by several authors [15–18]. The extraction mechanism of the zinc by the PU foam in the form of thiocyanate complexes has been studied by Moody et al. [15]. Maloney et al. [16] have proposed a procedure for simulta- neous extraction of zinc, cobalt(II), iron(III) and cadmium(II) from thiocyanate medium by PU foam. Nickel is not extracted. Braun and Abbas [17] have proved that zinc, mercury and indium are extracted quantitatively by PU foam in the form of thiocyanates complexes. Hamza et al. [18] have used PU foam treated with dithizone for the extraction of zinc and bis- muth.
Zinc(II) reacts instantaneously with 4-(2- pyridylazo)-resorcinol (PAR) [19,20] in the range of pH from 9.0 to 10.0, forming a com- plex with maximum absorption at 496 nm and molar absorptivity of 8.30×104 l mol− 1 cm− 1. Cadmium(II) also reacts with PAR, forming a
complex with absorption maximum at 510 nm
and molar absorptivity of 8.12 × 104 l cm−1.
mol − 1