Atomic-absorption spectrometric determination of copper(I) after adsorption of its 2,4,6-tri(2-pyridyl)-1,3,5-triazine complex with tetraphenylborate anion on microcrystalline naphthalene

Abstract

An atomic-absorption spectrometric method for the determination of trace amounts of copper(I) after adsorption of tis 2,4,6-tri(2-pyridyl)-1,3,5-triazine tetraphenylborate ion-associated complex on microcrystalline naphthalene has been developed. This ion-associated complex is adsorbed on microcrystalline naphthalene in the pH range 2.2–8.0 by shaking for a few seconds. The solid mass so formed is separated by filtration, dissolved in dimethylformamide and the absorbance is measured at 324.7 nm. Beer's law is obeyed in the concentration range 5.0–95.0 µg of copper in 10 ml of the dimethylformamide solution. Ten replicate determinations on a sample containing 40 µg of copper gave a mean absorbance of 0.225 with a standard deviation of 0.0018 and a relative standard deviation of 0.82%. The sensitivity for 1% absorption and the detection limit are 0.075 µg ml^–1 and 0.018 µg ml^–1, respectively. The method has been successfully applied to the determination of copper in some standard reference materials and biological samples.