Synthesis of porphyrin-incorporated polymers and their application for simultaneous detection of multimetal components by using spectrophotometry

For the purpose of detection of multimetal components in environment, alteration of the spectrophotometrical metal sensitivity of porphyrin was attempted. Two porphyrin-incorporated polymers were newly synthesized by the free radical copolymerization of protoporphyrin IX disodium salt and vinyl monomers, and their metal sensitivities were examined by measuring the difference absorption spectra. These porphyrin-incorporated polymers showed different metal sensitivities and their sensitivities were altered by change of pH. Three measuring reagents, which were different in the combination of the porphyrin-incorporated polymers and pH, were used for the simultaneous detection of multimetal components in metal ion mixtures. The difference spectra of these reagents showed the separate peaks corresponding to six metal ions, Bi(III), Co(II), Cu(II), Mn(II), Pb(II), and Zn(II). The spectra were acquired reproducibly by using standard normal variate (SNV) transformation. Furthermore, this method was applied to detect multimetal components in water samples such as tap water and industrial effluent.