A new metal–organic framework (MOF) with zinc as the metal ion and benzene-1,3-dicarboxylic acid as organic linker was synthesized via the hydrothermal method and used as a selective nanoadsorbent for the extraction and preconcentration of trace amounts of cadmium via a solid phase extraction method. Also, flame atomic absorption spectrometry was applied for the quantification of extracted Cd ions. The synthesized Zn-MOF nanocomposite was characterized by different techniques such as transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Furthermore, the effects of various factors on the synthesis of the Zn-MOF nanoadsorbent and Cd adsorption process were investigated. Under the optimum conditions, a preconcentration factor of 100, RSD of 2.2% for 80.0 μg L−1 Cd and detection limit of 0.2 μg L−1 were obtained. Finally, the recommended method was applied for the determination of Cd ions in real and standard samples.
