Determination of uranium, iron, copper, and nickel from ore samples by MEKC using N , N ′‐ethylene bis(salicylaldimine) as complexing reagent

An analytical procedure has been developed for the separation of dioxouranium(VI), iron(III), copper(II), nickel(II), cobalt(II), cobalt(III), palladium(II), and thorium(IV) by MEKC using N , N ′‐ethylene bis(salicylaldimine) (H 2 SA 2 en) as a complexing reagent with total runtime <4.5 min. SDS was used as micellar medium at pH 8 with sodium tetraborate buffer (0.1 M). An uncoated fused‐silica capillary with an effective length of 50 cm×75 μm id was used with an applied voltage of 30 kV with photodiode array detection at 231 nm. Linear calibrations were obtained within 0.111–1000 μg/mL of each element with LODs within 37–325 ng/mL. The developed method was tested for analysis of uranium ore samples indicating its presence within 103–1789 μg/g with RSD within 0.79–1.87%. Likewise copper, nickel, and iron in their combined matrix were also simultaneously determined with RSD 0.4–1.6% ( n  = 6).