Simultaneous determination of palladium, platinum and rhodium by on-line column enrichment and HPLC with 5-(2,4-dihydroxyphenylazo)-rhodanine as pre-column derivatization reagent.

In this paper, a new method for the simultaneous determination of palladium, platinum and rhodium ions was developed using a rapid column high performance liquid chromatography equipped with on-line enrichment technique. The palladium, platinum and rhodium ions were pre-column derivatized with DHAR to form colored chelates. The Pb-DHAR, Pt-DHAR and Rh-DHAR chelates could be absorbed onto the front of the enrichment column when they were injected into the injector and sent to the enrichment column [ZORBAX Stable Bound, 4.6 x 10 mm, 1.8 microm] with a 0.05 mol L(-1) of phosphoric acid solution as mobile phase. After enrichment, and by switching the six ports switching valve, the retained chelates were back-flushed by mobile phase and traveling towards the analytical column. The separation of these chelates on the analytical column [ZORBAX Stable Bound, 4.6 x 50 mm, 1.8 microm] was satisfactory with 54% acetonitrile (containing 0.05 mol L(-1) of phosphoric acid and 0.1% of tritonX-100) as mobile phase. Palladium, platinum and rhodium were separated completely within 2 min. By on-line enrichment technique, the enrichment factor of 100 was achieved, and the detection limits (S/N = 3) of palladium, platinum and rhodium reaches 1.4 ng L(-1), 1.6 ng L(-1) and 2.0 ng L(-1), respectively. This method was applied to the determination of palladium, platinum and rhodium in water, urine and soil samples with good results.