Spectrophotometric and derivative spectrophotometric determination of nickel with hydroxynaphthol blue

The reaction of nickel(II) cation with hydroxynaphthol blue (HNB) in aqueous media at pH 5.2–6.0 results in a red complex that is stable for at least 2h. Beer's Law is obeyed up to 3.2 g/ml of nickel(II) with an apparent molar absorptivity of 1.38 × 10⁴l/mol/cm at 563 nm. This paper proposes procedures for nickel determination by ordinary and first-derivative spectrophotometry. The results demonstrate that the linear dynamic range is 0.08–3.20 g/ml with a limit of detection of 23 ng/ml for ordinary spectrophotometry, compared with 21–800 ng/ml and 6 ng/ml, respectively, for first-derivative spectrophotometry. Calcium(II), magnesium(II), barium(II), strontium(II), cadmium(II), lead(II), manganese(II), bismuth(III) and molybdenum(VI) ions do not interfere for at least 1001 mass ratios. The main interferents are cobalt(II), titanium(IV), aluminium(III), mercury(II) and copper(II). The interferences of titanium(IV), aluminium(III), zirconium(IV) and iron(III) can be masked by fluoride and mercury(II) and copper(II) with thiosulfate or thiourea. The derivative method is applied to nickel determination in standard brasses and the results demonstrate that there is no significant difference between the results and certified values at the 95% confidence level.