Micellar electrokinetic chromatographic separation and analysis of thorium, uranium, gold, and mercury in environmental ore samples

A fast and reliable analytical procedure has been developed for separation and analysis of dioxouranium, thorium, gold, and mercury by micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) using bis(acetylacetone)ethylenediamine (H 2 AA 2 en) as complexing reagent. Under the optimized conditions (64 mM borate buffer containing 12.25 mM SDS and 13% acetonitrile, pH 7.99; 25 kV; detection wavelength 311 nm), other ions present were separated within 5 min. Linear dynamic ranges 1–5, 8–42, 10–50, and 2–40 μg mL -1 and detection limits 0.66, 3.33, 1.6, and 3.3 μg mL -1, respectively, were achieved for gold, mercury, thorium, and uranium. The applicability of method was evaluated by analysis of uranium and thorium in ore samples.