Rapid and sensitive spectrophotometric determination of trace amounts of iron(III) using leuco Xylene cyanol FF

A new, simple, sensitive, and reliable method is presented for the rapid spectrophotometric determination of trace amounts of iron(Ill) using leuco Xylene cyanol FF. The method is based on the oxidation of leuco Xylene cyanol FF (LXCFF) to its blue form of xylene cyanol FF by iron(III) in sulfuric acid medium (pH 2.0-3.0), the absorbance of the formed dye is measured in an acetate buffer medium (pH2.8-4.4) at 615 nm. The method obeys Beer's law over a concentration range of 0.15-0.9 mug mL(-1) iron, having a molar absorptivity of 5.6x10(4) L mol(-1) cm(-1) and a Sandell's sensitivity of 0.0001 mug cm(-2). The optimum reaction conditions and other analytical parameters have been evaluated. The developed method has been successfully applied to the determination of iron in water, soil, industrial effluent, plant material, pharmaceutical preparations, synthetic mixtures, and aluminum alloys.