Spectrophotometric determination of ethiofencarb in waters by reaction with p-aminophenol

Summary An automatized procedure has been developed for the spectrophotometric determination of ethiofencarb in water by reaction with p-aminophenol after alkaline hydrolysis to obtain the corresponding phenol sulphone. The hydrolyzed samples are continuously introduced into different manifolds at the same time as 300 mg/l p-aminophenol, 0.004 mol/l KIO₄ and 0.04 mol/l NaOH solutions. The absorbance is measured at 638 nm after a reaction time of 6 min in stop flow. This absorbance band corresponds to the indo dye obtained from the reaction between the phenol sulphone of ethiofencarb and the quinoneimine form of the p-aminophenol and it permits a matrix-free spectrophotometric determination of ethiofencarb with a limit of detection of 33 g/l. The recovery of ethiofencarb in different water matrices varies from 71 to 126%.