It has been found that silica chemically modified with dipropyl disulfide groups (DPDSS) quantitatively extracts palladium(II) from solutions in the acidity range from 4 M HCl to pH 4 and gold(III) in the range from 1 M HCl to pH 2 with a partition coefficient at the level of n × 10⁴ cm³/g. The adsorption of palladium(II) and gold(III) at room temperature is highly selective, whereas non-ferrous and other platinum metals are not adsorbed. Sorption-atomic absorption, sorption-ICP-atomic emission, and sorption-photometric methods for the determination of palladium and gold have been developed using DPDSS. The accuracy of the methods was tested by the analysis of certified reference samples.

A series of complexing adsorbents is prepared by coating silica particles with linear polyhexamethylene guanidinium (PHMG) chloride followed by saturation with a number of sulphonated nitrosonaphthols reagents electrostatically retained by positively charged polymer layer. PHMG coated silica is hydrolytically stable even during treatment with 6 M HCl heated up to 50 °C. The adsorption of 1-nitroso-2-naphthol-3,6-disulfonic acid (nitroso-R-salt), 2-nitroso-1-naphthol-4-sulfonic acid (nitroso-N-salt), and 2-nitroso-1-naphthol-3,6-disulfonic acid (nitroso-K-salt) on PHMG modified silica was studied. The effective immobilisation of sulphonated nitrosonaphthols was achieved in the range of pH of 3 - 8, while the adsorption of the monosulphonated reagent (nitroso-N-salt) is twice as high as the disulphonated analogues (nitroso-R-salt and nitroso-K-salt). The adsorption of Cu(II), Fe(III), Co(II), Ni(II), Al(III), Zn(II), Pb(II), Mn(II), and Cr(III) on prepared complexing adsorbents under static and dynamic conditions was studied as a function of time, pH, sample volume, and presence of interfering ions. Metal ions can be desorbed by using 1 M HCl or 1 M HNO₃. The preconcentration factors of metals under optimized conditions are varied from 20 to 80. The developed method was used for the preconcentration of trace metals from natural waters followed by ICP-OES determination. The sub-ppb limits of detection of metals are achieved.

Silica gel chemically modified with dithiocarbamate groups (DTCS) was used for separation and preconcentration of precious metals and their subsequent determination in geological samples and their processing products by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. DTCS was characterized by TGA/DSC, FT-IR, and CHNS-analysis. DTCS quantitatively extracted Au³⁺, Pd²⁺, Pt²⁺, Pt⁴⁺ at 20°C from 0.5 to 4.0 M HCl media and Rh³⁺, Ir⁴⁺, Ru⁴⁺, and Os⁴⁺ at 95°C in the presence of 0.025 M SnCl₂. Two-column procedure was proposed to separate precious metals from matrix components and to separate kinetically inert precious metals from kinetically labile ones.