A sensitive spectrophotometric method for the determination of trace amounts of uranium(VI) using 2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde isonicotinoyl hydrazone

The reaction between uranium(VI) and 2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde isonicotinoyl hydrazone (2HNAINH) has been investigated in HCl-sodium acetate buffers and a highly sensitive and simple procedure for the determination of uranium(VI) is suggested. The orange red colored complex showed maximum absorption at 430 nm in buffer solutions of pH 3. Beer's law is obeyed in the range of 0.2 to 33 g ml^–1. The molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity are found to be 9.6×10³ mol·l^–1 and 0.025 g cm^–2, respectively. The composition of the complex between metal and reagent is found to be 11. The effect of diverse ions is also studied and the method is successfully applied for the determination of uranium in synthetic mixtures.