Simultaneous speciation of inorganic selenium and tellurium in environmental water samples by polyaniline functionalized magnetic solid phase extraction coupled with ICP-MS detection.

Herein, polyaniline functionalized magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were prepared and investigated as the adsorbents for the separation and enrichment of inorganic selenium and tellurium species. The prepared FeO@SiO@polyaniline (PANI) MNPs presents selective adsorption performance for Se and Te, along with fast adsorption and desorption dynamics. Based on it, a method combining magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was developed for the simultaneous speciation of inorganic Se and Te in environmental waters. The adsorption mechanism was investigated preliminarily. Various parameters affecting FeO@SiO@PANI MSPE of Se and Te were investigated. Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection (3σ) for Se and Te were found to be 5.3 and 1.2 pg mL, with the relative standard deviations (c = 100 pg mL, c = 10 pg mL, n = 7) of 3.8 and 8.0%, respectively. The enrichment factor of the proposed method is 100-fold. The proposed method was successfully applied to the speciation of inorganic Se and Te in environmental water samples. The developed MSPE-ICP-MS method possesses the advantages of low cost, high enrichment factor, rapid operation and can simultaneously analyze inorganic Se and Te species in real-world samples.