Simple determination of nonionic surfactants in highly-polluted aqueous samples

This study examined the direct spectrometric method for determining non-ionic surfactants in highly-polluted samples (i.e., soil leachates) containing high concentrations of humic acids. Meso-tetra-(3,5-dibromo-4-hydrooxyphenyl)-porphyrin served as a coloration agent. The method was tested by use of two polyethoxylate/polypropoxylate — based non-ionic surfactants: Triton CF-21 containing aromatic groups in the structure and Novanik 1047A containing only linear hydrocarbon chains. The main goal was to quantify the influence of interfering species to the results. A test for coincidence of regression lines was employed for objective evaluation of the humic acid influence on the determination. It was observed that for linear surfactant Novanik 1047 A the method provides reliable result and thus, can serve for routine analyses. Regarding Triton CF-21, an interfering effect of humic acids was observed; however, after sufficient dilution of the samples, the method can be used as well. Finally, the method can be used for simple analyses of problematic samples without complicated sample-pretreatment.