Phenanthroline method for quantitative determination of surface carboxyl groups on carboxylated polystyrene particles with high sensitivity

This study developed a phenanthroline method for quantitative determination of surface carboxyl groups on carboxylated polystyrene (PS‐COOH) particles based on the coordination between the carboxyl groups and Fe²⁺. The ratio of the carboxyl groups, which is determined by conductometric titration method, to Fe²⁺ coordinated with the particles, which is determined by phenanthroline method, is 4.7, i.e. n_COOH = 4.7 × Δn_Fe²⁺. The Lambert–Beer law is obeyed in the range of 0–60 × 10^?9 mol/ml for the amount of surface carboxyl on the particles. The detection limit of the method is 2 nmol COOH/ml. The average standard deviation of the experiments is 4.4%. The relative deviation of the data obtained with this method is lower than 7% compared with that obtained with the conductometric titration method. The weight of the sample necessary for phenanthroline method is only about 0.1% of that necessary for conductometric titration method. It has been demonstrated that the phenanthroline method is suitable for quantitative determination of low amount of surface carboxyl groups on PS‐COOH particles due to its high sensitivity. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.