New complexes of Cu2 , Hg2 , and Cd2 with a recently synthesized Schiff base derived from
2-(3-hydroxy-1-methylbut-2-enylideneamino)pyridine-
3-ol were applied for their simultaneous determination
with artificial neural networks. A new analyticalmethod
using principal component-feed forward neural networks
(PC-FFNNs) and principal component-radial basis
function networks (PC-RBFNs) was used. Spectral
data was reduced using principal component analysis
and subjected to ANNs. The data obtained from synthetic
mixtures of metal ions were processed by PCFFNNs
and PC-RBFNs. Performances of the proposed
methods were tested with regard to relative standard
error of prediction. Limit of detections and limit of
quantifications were determined. The results obtained
by PC-FFNNs and PC-RBFNs were compared to each
other. Under the working conditions, the proposed
methods were successfully applied to simultaneous determination
of Hg2 , Cu2 , and Cd2 in different water
and soil samples. Concentrations of metal ions in the
samples were also determined by flame atomic absorption
spectrometry (FAAS) and standard addition method.
The amounts of metal ions obtained by the proposed
methods were in good agreement with those obtained by
FAAS and standard addition method.