A novel spectrofluorometric method for the determination of arsenic in human hair using Dy2O3-doped CeO2 nanoparticles

Abstract

This paper describes a simple and inexpensive method for the determination of arsenic in human hair samples based on spectrofluorometric detection. The applied Dy₂O₃-doped CeO₂ (DDC) nanoparticles were synthesized using microwave-induced combustion technique and subjected to analytical samples containing As(V) species. At optimum conditions (pH 6, DDC concentration 3 mg L⁻¹ and excitation/emission wavelengths 250 nm/352 nm), the fluorescence emission of DDC nanoparticles was diminished by increasing the As(V) concentration present in the medium. The co-existent ions present in hair were not interfered. A method for the speciation of As(III) and As(V) is also described. The method was validated using a well-known separation/spectrofluorometric method. There was no significant difference at the 95% confidence level between the results of the two methods. The proposed method is characterized by a wide analytical concentration range (5.0 × 10⁻⁸–1.0 × 10⁻⁵ M), a detection limit for As(V) of 1 × 10⁻⁸ mol L⁻¹ and relative standard deviation of 1.4%. The recoveries for the spiked amounts of As(V) was found to be 93.3–104.0%.