Spectrophotometric determination of mercury(II) as the ternary complex with rhodamine 6g and iodide

The formation of a pink-coloured product when rhodamine 6G is treated with tetraiodomercurate(II) is used to determine mercury (5–25 μg) in a final volume of 25 ml. The reaction occurs immediately over the pH range 1–7 and, when the system is stabilized with gelatin, the absorbance remains unchanged at 575 nm for at least 24 h. The few interfering ions can be masked by the addition of appropriate reagent solutions. The method is simple and reliable and provides a molar absorptivity of 7.0·10⁴ l mole^-1 cm^-1.