Use of the vanadium(V)-xylenol orange mixture as an improved reagent for the spectrophotometric determination of traces of hydrogen peroxide

The reaction in V(V)-xylenol orange (XO)-H₂O₂ system was studied by spectrometry. On the addition of hydrogen peroxide to the mixture of vanadium(V) and XO (V-XO reagent), the absorption peak of V(V)-XO complex (λ_max = 582 nm) decreased significantly. The decrease in the absorbance (denoted as ΔA) was proportional to the concentration of hydrogen peroxide. The constant values of ΔA were obtained under the condition of XO]/V(V)] = 0.5 ~ 1.2 and in the pH 3.5 ~ 4.5 region. Based on these results, the conditions for the use of the V-XO reagent in the colorimetric determination of hydrogen peroxide were examined in detail. The V-XO reagent was found to be useful for the trace analysis of hydrogen peroxide with high sensitivity, and the data were little affected by the presence of some inorganic and organic substances. The lower limit of the determination is about 1 × 10^?6M.