Sensitization of uranium fluorescence using 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid: Application for the determination of uranium in the presence of lanthanides

The 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid (PDA) has been shown to efficiently sensitize and enhance the fluorescence of uranium in aqueous medium. Interestingly, this ligand stabilizes the UO₂²⁺ species, which without the ligand is known to be in a negligible concentration, in aqueous medium at pH 6. The ligand sensitized enhancement of UO₂²⁺ fluorescence by PDA, provides an analytical tool for the determination of uranium at trace levels, in aqueous medium. Furthermore, PDA is also known to enhance the fluorescence of lanthanides; consequently, the simultaneous determination of uranium and lanthanides, using PDA as a fluorescence sensitizing agent, becomes a possibility, which has been demonstrated in this work. We have shown that the use of PDA yields detection limits of 2.2×10⁻⁷ M for UO₂²⁺, 1×10⁻⁸ M for Tb³⁺ and 5×10⁻⁹ M for Eu³⁺ in the simultaneous determination of these analytes.