Synthesis, characterization, and application of polyacrylamide/carmine polymer nanomaterial as an effective solid-phase material for ultrasonic-assisted solid-phase microextraction of aluminum and chromium in vegetable samples

Here, a new and inexpensive polymer nanomaterial consisting of polyacrylamide and carmine (PAM-CR) was synthesized to provide selective extraction of aluminum and chromium from vegetable samples prior to their determination by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. Various characterized techniques including scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction were applied to investigate the structure and morphology of the PAM-CR. Important factors were investigated and optimized to improve the effectiveness of the adsorbent. Under optimized conditions, calibration graphs for Al(III) and Cr(III) were linear in the range from 0.2 to 400.0 μg L−1 and 1.0 to 500.0 µg L−1, respectively. Satisfied recoveries between 93.1% and 102.7% were obtained with detection limits of 0.06 µg L−1 and 0.35 µg L−1 for Al(III) and Cr(III), respectively. The relative standard deviation was in range of 2.0–2.3%. The PAM-CR can be reused 8 times without significant loss in the recovery. After validation study with certified reference material, the proposed method was successfully applied to the pre-concentration and determination of Al(III) and Cr(III) in vegetable samples.