A Histogram-Based Technique for Simultaneous Colorimetric Determination of Malachite Green and Brilliant Green Using Triton X-100 Micelle

Background Malachite green (MG) and brilliant green (BG) are two synthetic triphenylmethane dyes with applications in the textile and aquaculture industries. They are considered to be environmental contaminants due to their carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. Both dyes have the same bluish-green color in aqueous solutions. Objective The aim of this study is to develop a colorimetric analysis as a very simple and cost-effective method to determine the residues of MG and BG simultaneously in aqueous industrial samples. Method This method is based on the alterations in red, blue, green (RGB) color histograms of the dyes in the presence and absence of Triton X-100 micelle. The images of the samples were taken by a digital camera and converted to the RGB color system using MATLAB software. Partial least-squares regression as a powerful chemometrics tool was used for multivariate calibrations and quantitative measurements. The performance of the proposed method was compared with a simple spectrophotometric method as a reference. Results Relative errors of prediction for colorimetric and spectrophotometric analysis, respectively, in micellar media were 6.56 and 4.61% for MG and 6.38 and 5.24% for BG. The shortest linear ranges for colorimetric and spectrophotometric analysis, respectively, in micellar media were 0.1-10 and 0.5-5 mg/L for MG and 0.1-15 and 0.5-6 mg/L for BG. The recovery percentages obtained from the analysis of the dyes in real samples of fish-pond water and textile wastewater ranged between 91 and 107%. Conclusions The good correlation between the results of the colorimetric analysis and the spectrophotometric analysis indicates the reliability of the proposed colorimetric method. Also, the results of the relative recovery study showed insignificant matrix effect.