Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Chemical Papers (2022) 76:3147–3154 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11696-022-02086-3 ORIGINAL PAPER Micelle mediated selective extraction of lead after its complexation with thionine in aqueous samples prior to FAAS determination Gizem Kahve Yıldırım 1  · Yavuz Sürme 1 Received: 9 July 2021 / Accepted: 16 January 2022 / Published online: 1 February 2022 © Institute of Chemistry, Slovak Academy of Sciences 2022 Abstract A micelle mediated phase separation and preconcentration process of trace level Pb (II) ions in water samples, after chelat- ing with thionine for determination by fame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) was developed. The preconcentration step was based on the cloud point extraction of lead-thionine chelates with the non-ionic surfactant Tergitol NP-7 (TNP-7). Pb (II) ions were selectively reacted with thionine at pH 6 forming stable hydrophobic metal-chelates. The selectivity of the method proved in the presence of fve diferent possible chelatable metal ions with thionine ligand. The parameters of the method were optimized for solution pH, surfactant concentration, ligand concentration, reaction temperature, incubation time and matrix ions. The reliability of the method was tested by relative standard deviation (RSD %), which was found to be less than 5%. The LOD and LOQ values were found as 1.5 and 5 μg L −1 and the preconcentration factor was 25. The performance of the process was tested by standard reference material and analyte addition into the real samples. Keywords Micellar mediated extraction · Lead · Flame atomic absorption spectroscopy · Preconcentration · Selective ligand Introduction Heavy metals are serious inorganic pollutants for humans, animals, plants and aquatic life, even at very low concentra- tions (Mohammadi et al. 2010), and main sources of heavy metals are human activities (Bahadır et al. 2014). These met- als have harmful efects on living organisms, and are also a signifcant threat to the ecosystem (Rivas et al. 2009). The metal pollution is an important risk for living organisms in the developing world, and its efects are rapidly increasing (Silva et al. 2009). Among the heavy metal ions, lead is a highly toxic metal ion for living organisms even at low concentrations. It is also one of the most accumulative element and environmen- tal priority pollutant (Mohammadi et al. 2016) (Chen et al. 2005). There are many factors that cause lead pollution. Some of these are industrial wastewater, trafc emissions and pesticide residuals (Wang et al. 2016). In addition to being one of the major pollutants in the environment, it has an accumulating efect and causes various diseases such as cardiovascular efects, renal failure, neurologic damage, and venereal toxicity (Kamel et al. 2019). Lead is also classifed as Group B2 probable carcinogenic substances in the clas- sifcation made by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Naseri et al. 2008). Lead has various negative efects on human as reducing enzymatic activities, damaging the nervous and reproduc- tive systems, and may cause impairment in liver and kidney functions (Comitre et al. 2005; Gupta et al. 2011). Instrumental techniques such as atomic absorption spec- trometry (AAS) (Behari et al. 2006; Souza et al. 2020) which has two common use, fame atomic absorption spectrom- etry (FAAS) (Zhao et al. 2015; Adhami et al. 2020) and electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) (Alvarez et al. 2012; Nik et al. 2020), inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) (Zougagh et al. 2002; Jia et al. 2011), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) (Li et al. 2015; Vidmar et al. 2018; Ling-Han et al. 2011) are widely used for the detecting of trace amounts of heavy metals. This study is a part of the graduate thesis of Gizem Kahve Yıldırım. * Yavuz Sürme ysurme@ohu.edu.tr 1 Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, 51100 Niğde, Turkey