High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of nickel,copper and zinc as their tetraphenylporphine chelates

Nickel(II), copper(II) and zinc(II) ions are extracted from an aqueous solution into carbon tetrachloride as their diethyldithiocarbamate (DDC) chelates. The extract, after removal of the solvent, is treated with meso-tetraphenylporphine (TPP) in benzyl alcohol at 140°C for 60 min. Quantitative conversion of the DDC chelate to the TPP chelate is obtained over the range 0.25–4.5 μg of each metal by use of 3 μgmol of TPP. The reaction mixture is analysed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with spectrophotometric detection at 412 nm. Simultaneous determination of Cu and Zn in NBS bovine liver is possible by this procedure.