Effect of Triton X-100 on the Spectrophotometric Determination of Aluminium in the Presence of Iron(III) - Application to Various Water Samples

(Received 16 /1/ 2018 ; Accepted 17 / 9 / 2018 ) ABSTRACT An accurate simple, rapid and direct spectrophotometric method for the determination of aluminium in presence of iron (III) was developed. The method is based on the reaction of aluminium (III) with xylenol orange at pH 4.3 using potassium hydrogen phthalate buffer solution to form a stable orange-red coloured complex which has maximum absorption at 512 nm. This study is showing the effect of triton X-100 on the spectrophotometric determination of aluminium which effected the stability, limits of Beer's law, blanck value and final absorption spectrum. Beer's law was obeyed over the range of (1-200) μg/25 ml (i.e 0.04-8.0 ppm). The molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity of the coloured complex are 1.173×10 l.mol.cm, 0.00230 μg.cm respectively. The interference caused by iron (III) was suppressed by adding sodium cyanide as masking agent. The method has been applied successfully for determining aluminium (III) in various water samples. The same work was done for the spectrophotometric determination of aluminium in the absences of triton X-100. While the analytical parameters recorded are 1.045×10 l.mol.cm, 0.00258 μg.cm, the molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity of the coloured complex respectively, and limits of Beer's law are (5-100) μg/25ml (i.e. 0.2-4.0 ppm).