nanosized fe3o4–curcumin conjugates for adsorption of heavy metals from seawater samples

Magnetic nanoparticles (mnps) functionalized by curcumin (cur) was synthesized with a simple co-precipitation method and used for removal of cu(іі), cd(іі) and co(іі) in natural water samples. the cur-coated mnps were characterized by xrd, edx, ft-ir, fe-sem and tem techniques. tem result showed the particle size of < 20 nm for the synthesized material. the optimum extraction conditions were obtained as sample ph in the range of 6.5–7.5 and the sorbent mass of about 6 mg for the metals. the fast extraction times (≤ 3 min) were obtained for sorption of cu (ii), cd(іі) and co(іі). the complete elution from the sorbent surface was carried out using 0.5 ml hno3 solution (0.1 mol l−1). the detection limit of the method was found to be lower than 0.5 ng l−1 for the analytes. the analytical curve was linear from 0.4 to 70 µg l−1 for cu(іі) and cd(іі), and 1.5–50 µg l−1 for co(іі) with an correlation coefficients of > 0.991 and a relative standard deviation of 1.3% (n = 6).