Spectrophotometric Determination of Trace Amounts of Lead with Safranine O in Synthetic Sea Water and Zinc Sulphate

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Chemistry Department, Girls College for Education, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

A highly selective and sensitive Spectrophotometric procedure for the determination of lead is developed. This is based on the interaction of iodide complex of lead with safranine O to form an orange product which absorbs maximally at 494 nm. The complex formed is stable for 2 h when stabilized with polymer. The Pb-l-safranine complex was fully formed in the pH range 3.5-4.5 and solution should contain appropriate concentrations of I and safranine O. 50 fold amounts of various cations and anions do not interfere in the determination of 0.1-10 µg of lead [ɛ = 8.62x104 1 mol -1cm-1]. The method is precise and has been applied to synthetic sea water samples and zinc sulphate materials.

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