Flow injection spectrofluorimetric determination of iron in industrial effluents based on fluorescence quenching of 1-naphthol-2- sulfonate.

A sensitive and selective spectrofluorimetric method has been developed for flow injection analysis (FIA) of iron(III) based on its fluorescence quenching effect on the water soluble 1-naphthol-2-sulfonate. The fluorescence emission spectra were collected with excitation at 283 nm. The emission peaks of the neutral and anionic forms of 1-naphthol-2-sulfonate as well as the band area were found to decrease linearly with iron(III) concentrations over the range 0.1-18 μg ml(-1) and a detection limit of 3.4 ng ml(-1) (emission at 349 nm) with FIA. Possible interferences from different cations and anions, which could affect the analytical response, are evaluated and showed the high selectivity of the method. The effect of solution pH and 1-naphthol-2-sulfonate concentration were examined and the reaction conditions are optimized. The method is successfully applied to determine iron(III) in industrial effluents from different sources without any complications with recoveries of almost 100% with both manual and flow injection methods. Results were found to be very consistent with those obtained using atomic absorption spectrometry.