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 mu g mL(-1) and detection limits 0.66, 3.33, 1.6, and 3.3 mu g 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.