Spectrophotometric determination of iron(III)-dimethyldithiocarbamate (ferbam) using 9-(4-carboxyphenyl)-2,3,7-trihydroxyl-6-fluorone

A spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of iron(III)-dimethyldithiocarbamate (ferbam) by concerting it into an iron(III)-9-(4-carboxyphenyl)-2,3,7-trihydroxyl-6-fluorone complex. In NH₃-HAc buffer solution (pH 6.5), the reagent reacts with ferbam to form a blue complex with a maximum absorption peak at 640 nm. The reaction can be completed rapidly at room temperature and the absorbance is stable for at least 24 h. The apparent molar absorption coefficient, Sandell’s sensitivity of the complex, the detection limit and the relative standard deviation were found to be 1.06×10⁵ l mol⁻¹ cm⁻¹, 3.9 ng cm⁻², 2.2 ng ml⁻¹ and 1.06%, respectively. From 0 to 75 μg of ferbam in 25 ml solution the absorbance obeyed Beer’s law. The effect of foreign ions and other dithiocarbamates were also studied in detail. The results indicated that all coexisting ions examined can be tolerated in considerable amounts, especially other dithiocarbamates such as ziram and zineb, which always interfere with the determination of ferbam in the literature. The proposed method is very sensitive, selective and simple, it has been applied to determine ferbam in commercial samples.