Spectrophotometric determination of cationic surfactants in water samples containing anionic surfactants

Concerning the spectrophotometric determination of cationic surfactants (CS) with anionic dyes, when a large amount of anionic surfactants (AS) is contained in a water sample, CS can not be determined, because it reacts with AS to form a CS-AS ion associate and doesn't react with anionic dyes. A method is proposed to avoid interference from AS based on the extraction of the CS-AS ion associate formed into an organic solvent from water samples to separate it from any excess of AS and color development by replacing AS in the CS-AS ion associate extracted with anionic dyes. In the presence of dodecylsulfate (LAS) as AS and sodium chloride, CS, such as alkyl trimethyl ammonium salts, tetraalkyl ammonium salts, alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium salts and alkyl pyridinium salts, was extracted as the CS-AS ion associate into 1,2-dichloroethane. When a tetrabromophenolphtalein ethylester dye anion (TEPE) was used at pH8.5 similar to 10 as anoinic dyes, a CS-TBPE ion associate was formed in 1,2-dichloroethane and was measured spectrophotometrically at 610 nm. The absorbance was propotional to the concentration of CS. Good results were obtained on recovery tests using river and sea water samples containing AS in the range of 0.12 similar to 0.16 mg as LAS/1.