Analytical Sciences
Online ISSN : 1348-2246
Print ISSN : 0910-6340
ISSN-L : 0910-6340
Original Papers
Field Determination of Trace Iron in Fresh Water Samples by Visual and Spectrophotometric Methods
Susumu KAWAKUBOAyako NAITOAsuka FUJIHARAMasaki IWATSUKI
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2004 Volume 20 Issue 8 Pages 1159-1163

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Abstract
Sensitive visual and micro spectrophotometric methods have been developed for field determination of trace iron in fresh water samples. For the visual method, a water sample (0.45-µm filtrate acidified to 0.1 M HCl) was placed in a glass vial and mixed with a reagent solution containing 1,10-phenanthroline, sodium thiocyanate and 0.1 M HCl. Iron was extracted as pink ferroin thiocyanate with 1 ml of 4-methy-2-pentanone. The sample up to 20 ml was added step-by-step, until the color of the extract was detected visually. Without any special instrument or color standard, iron down to 0.001 mg l-1 (0.025 µg) in a sample can be determined with an error of 20% in the field. For the micro spectrophotometric method, the extract for 20 ml of sample was separated by capillary suction in a column (micro pipette chip) with acrylic fibers. A part of the extract was pushed out into a micro cell for the absorbance measurement at 525 nm. The column was re-usable after washing with ethanol. This method had a detection limit of 0.001 mg l-1 and allowed determinations within an error of 5%. The proposed methods were applied to deionized-, tap-, river-, lake- and reservoir-water samples.
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© 2004 by The Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry
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