UV-Vis Spectrophotometric Determination of Selected Heavy Metals (Pb, Cr, Cd and As) in Environmental, Water and Biological Samples with Synthesized Glutaraldehyde Phenyl Hydrazone as the Chromogenic Reagent

A simple, sensitive, selective, and non-extractive UV-Vis spectrophotometric method for the determination of cadmium, lead, chromium, and arsenic in biological, soil and water samples using synthesized and characterized phenyl hydrazone; glutaraldehydephenyl hydrazone (GPH) as the chromogenic reagent was developed. GPH was synthesized as new chromogenic analytical reagents for the direct UV-Vis spectrophotometric determination of the selected metals of interest in a slightly acidic pH of 6.5-7.5 and 20 % dimethylformamide (DMF) solution to give stable coloured metal-ligand complexes. The reactions were instantaneous; the wavelengths of maximum absorptions were followed spectrophotometrically and noted. The reagent GPH revealed a wavelength of maximum absorption between 360.0 (Cr) to 395.0 nm for (Pb and As) at a working pH of 6.5 to 7.5 room temperature (37 °C). The reagent GPH had a molar absorptivity (L mol-1 cm-1) ranging from 2.213×104 (Pb) to 2.460×104 (As), a mole ratio of metal to ligand of 2:1, the detection limit (µg/g) ranging from 0.3432 (As) to 0.5250 (Pb) and the metal-ligand complex was stable for 0-48 hours. The reagents had a Beer’s law validity range (mg L-1) of 0.001 to 100. The Sandell’s sensitivities (µg/cm2) ranged from 0000409 (As) to 0.00499 (Pb) for APDH and 0.00406 (As) to 0.00452 (Pb) respectively. Large excess of cations and anions as possible interferences up to 15 folds were studied and do not interfere with the determination of the selected metals of interest. The developed method is highly selective for Cd, Pb, and Cr and As and was successfully used for the determination for the said elements in soil, water, and biological samples. The results of the developed methods were comparable with AAS and were found to be in good agreement. The method had very high precision and very good accuracy.