Spectrophotometric Determination of Gold(III) Using 2-Hydroxy-3-Methoxy Benzaldehyde Thiosemicarbazone as a Chromophoric Reagent

A chromophoric reagent, 2-hydroxy-3-methoxy benzaldehyde thiosemicarbazone (HMBATSC), was employed for the sensitive spectrophotometric determination of gold(III). The gold(III) ion forms a blue-coloured complex with HMBATSC in an aqueous dimethyl formamide at pH 6.0. The gold complex shows the absorption maximum at 385 nm, and Beer's law was obeyed in the range 0.49–8.37 μg mL−1. The molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity were found to be 1.28×104 L mol−1 cm−1 and 0.015 μg cm−2, respectively. The complex shows 1 : 1 [Au(III) : HMBATSC] stoichiometry with a stability constant of 1.32×106. The interference effect of various diverse ions has been studied. In addition to zero-order, first- and second-order derivative spectrophotometric methods were also developed for the determination of gold(III) in microgram amounts which were more sensitive than the zero-order method. The developed method has been used for the determination of gold(III) in environmental water samples and certified reference materials. The results were in excellent agreement with the certified values.