Development of Spectrophotometric Method for Determination of Copper by Surfactant Medium

Abstract

The present work describes the development of spectrophotometric method for determination of copper(II) with 2-carboxy-2’-hydroxy-5’-sulfoformazyl benzene (zincon) in surfactant medium. The experiment is performed by using the spectrophotometric measurement of copper-zincon complex solubilized with a non-ionic surfactant, Triton X-100, yielding a blue colored complex at pH 3.0. It could be enhanced spectrophotometric measurement of copper(II) and also eliminate interference effect from other metals. Operational conditions; wavelength , concentration of zincon and Triton X-100, pH of the solution and interference; are characterized and optimized to allow quantitative determination of copper(II). A calibration curve was linear over the range of 0.50-5.00 g ml-1 of copper(II) with correlation coefficient 0.9999. The limit of detection (3) was 0.01 g ml-1 Cu(II). The repeatability and reproducibility were 0.09 % and 0.3 % (n=10) for 0.5 g ml-1 Cu(II), respectively. This system has been successfully applied to the determination of copper(II) in drinking water, tap water and natural water samples without any special pre-treatment.