Spectrophotometric and derivative spectrophotometric determination of copper (II) with dithizone in aqueous phase

A Spectrophotometric and derivative Spectrophotometric study of Cu-dithizonate complex in aqueous phase in the presence of Triton X-100, a neutral surfactant, is reported. The system obeys Beer's law between 1.0 × 10^–6–9.0 × 10^–6 mol/l of Cu²⁺; detection limit is 12 ng/ml. The molar absorption coefficient, specific absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity of the complex are 3.06 × 10⁴ 1 mol^–1 cm^–1, 0.4825 ml g^–1 cm^–1 and 2.1 × 10^–3 g cm^–2, respectively. The conditional stability constant of the 1 2 complex, calculated considering simultaneously existing equilibria, has been found to be 1.73 × 10¹¹ I² mol² (I = 0.07, pH 1.4, temperature = 10 °C). Absorption studies in the derivative mode have been carried out to determine the absorption maximum of the complex and to overcome interference due to the presence of certain metal ions. The method has been validated by determination of copper in beers, wines, human hair, goat liver and fly ash samples.