Extraction of Nickel from Soil, Water, Fish, and Plants on Novel Pyridine-Functionalized MCM-41 and MCM-48 Nanoporous Silicas and Its Subsequent Determination by FAAS

Nickel is considered as an important toxic pollutant and is continuously released into the biosphere by some anthropogenic activities such as industrial and urban sewage. The main objective of this study was to determine the concentration of nickel in different samples of soil, water, and muscle tissue of fish species which were collected from the Persian Gulf. For this propose, a simple and sensitive solid-phase extraction using pyridine-functionalized Mobil Composition of Matter (MCM)-41 and MCM-48 nanoporous silica was developed and their application in preconcentration and determination of nickel by flame atomic absorption spectrometry was studied. Limit of detection was found to be lower than 3.5 mu g L-1. Recovery and precision of the method were above 98.5% and below 1.5%, respectively. To gauge their ability in terms of application to natural samples, the proposed method was applied to a number of natural samples including plants, water, soil and fish species, and the amount of nickel was determined by spiking known concentrations of nickel into the solution. The results show that pollution of soil and water has some effects on bioaccumulation of Ni on marine organisms and plants that could magnify along the food chain.