A highly sensitive and selective method for the extraction-spectrophotometric determination of cobalt

The method is based on the highly sensitive reaction between cobalt and 4-(5-bromo-2-pyridylazo)-l,3-diaminobenzene. The cationic complex in slightly acidic solution is quantitatively extracted into chloroform as an ion pair with anthraquinone sulfonate; interfering ions are retained in the aqueous phase by selected masking agents. The cobalt complex is then rapidly back-extracted into 2.4 M HCl and measured at 573 nm (? = 1.16 × 10⁵ l mol^-1 cm^-1).