Pyridine-2-aldehyde 2-furoylhydrazone as a fluorogenic reagent for the determination of nanogram amounts of gallium

Abstract

The synthesis, characteristics and analytical applications of pyridine-2-aldehyde 2-furoylhydrazone (PAFH) are described. This compound has been examined to evaluate its usefulness as a selective and sensitive spectrofluorimetric reagent for gallium. The method is applied in 0.8% ethanolic solution at pH 4.5. Under these conditions the fluorescent species have excitation and emission maxima at 380 and 445 nm, respectively. The detection limit is 0.8 ng ml^–1 and the range of application is between 1 and 50 ng ml^–1. The method has been employed to determine gallium in synthetic mixtures and its recovery from human urine samples.