A new spectrophotometric method for the determination of total and ferric iron in rain water at the ppb level

A new, simple, selective and sensitive spectrophotometric procedure for the on-site quantification of iron at nano-gram levels in atmospheric precipitations, i.e. rain as sample source is described. It is based on the color reaction of Fe3+ with SCN– ions in the presence of a cationic surfactant, i.e. cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), in strong HCl solution, and subsequent extraction of the complex with N-octylacetamide into toluene or chloroform. The apparent molar absorptivity of the complex is 2.60 × 105 L mol–1 cm–1 at λmax = 480 nm at an enrichment factor (EF) of 10. The detection limit (causing higher absorbance than the sum of the blank absorbance (0.009) and 3 SD) is 5 ng mL–1 Fe. Ions commonly associated with iron did not interfere in the present method. The effect of analytical variables, i.e. amount and type of the reagents, acidity, solvent, temperature, dilution, etc., in the determination of iron are discussed. The validity of the present method is checked with GF-AAS. The method has been applied to the determination of iron at the ppb level in rain water samples.