Spectrophotometric determination of hexamethylenetetramine

Abstract

A spectrophotometric method has been developed for the quantitative determination of aqueous hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) alone, in the presence of large amounts of formaldehyde, and in the presence of urine. The method is based on the perchloric acid hydrolysis of HMT to formaldehyde, oxidation of formaldehyde by hydrous silver(I) oxide, and oxidation of silver(O) with iron(III) in the presence of FerroZine. Optimum conditions were developed and HMT was determined over the range from 3 × 10^–7 to 3.3 × 10^–6 mol dm^–3. The method developed is approximately 7.5 times more sensitive than the chromotropic acid method.