The miniaturised process for lead removal from water samples using novel bioconjugated sorbents

In the present study, novel bioconjugated sorbents (peptide and oligo-nucleotide on the cobalt aluminate nanomaterials) were used to remove lead through miniaturised process and the concentration of lead was measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. For this aim, lead was collected on sorbent in mini tube, and the influences of experimental conditions (e.g. pH of sample, amount of sorbent, concentration of eluent, foreign ions) and retention parameters on the recovery of the lead element were examined. After the optimisation of experimental parameters, a successful separation was obtained at pH 7.5 with high (>95%) quantitative recovery and high precision (<10% relative standard deviation). Using the proposed bioconjugated sorbents, the lead in sea water and tap water samples could be practically and easily removed with 95% confidence level. The detection limits of this method for lead using oligonucleotide and peptide on the cobalt aluminate nanomaterials were 0.14 and 0.12 µg/L (3σ, N = 10) with sample-matched blanks. This method can be widely used as promising and cost-effective nanomaterials to remove lead from water systems.