N-hydroxy-N,N'-diphenylcinnamamidine (HDPCA) as a new reagent for extractive separation and photometric determination of vanadium(V)

N-hydroxy-N,N′-diphenylcinnamamidine (HDPCA) forms a blue-violet coloured 1:2 complex (metal:ligand) with vanadium(V), which can be quantitatively extracted into chloroform from 1.0–9.5M acetic acid medium. Based on this colour reaction, a sensitive and highly selective method for the spectrophotometric determination of microgram quantities of vanadium(V) has been developed. The complex shows maximum absorption at 570 nm and obeys Beer's law in the vanadium concentration range 0.6–12.5 μg/ml. The method has been applied to alloy steels.