Spectrophotometric determination of scandium (III)‎ with eriochrome cyanine R and cetylpyridinium chloride-application to waters and synthetic alloys

Abstract EN

The detailed investigation of a sensitive and selective spectrophotometric method for the trace amounts of scandium is described.

The method is based on the reaction of scandium with eriochrome cyanine R reagent in the presence of cetylpyridinium chloride surfactant at pH 4.1, to form a violet-blue ternary chelate which exhibits maximum absorption at 595nm.

Beer’s law is obeyed over the range 0.1-3.0 μg \ 25ml, i.e., 0.004-0.12 ppm, with a molar absorptivity of 1.5 x 1.3l.mol-1.cm-1, (r = 0.9991), Sandell’s sensitivity index of 0.45 ng.cm-2, a relative error of 0.4-0.0 % and a relative standard deviation of ± 0.6 to ± 6.1 %, depending on the concentration level.

The method has been applied successfully to determine, scandium in various samples of water and synthetic alloy.