Spectrophotometric determination of trace amounts of phenol in waste water and biological fluids

Abstract

A spectrophotometric method based on the indophenol reaction is described for the determination of phenol in water and biological fluids. Phenol reacts with ammonia and N-chlorosuccinimide in alkaline media with sodium nitroprusside as a catalyst to give a greenish blue indophenol dye. The dye has a maximum absorption at 670 nm. Beer's law is obeyed in the range 0.3–2.4 p.p.m. The molar absorptivity and the Sandell sensitivity are 3.30 × 10⁴ l mol^–1 cm^–1 and 0.0028 µg cm^–2, respectively. The reaction conditions and other analytical parameters have been optimised. The method has been successfully applied to the determination of phenol in waste water and biological fluids.