Spectrophotometric determination of beryllium and zirconium using chromotrope-2C

Summary

Disodium salt of o-carboxyphenylazo chromotropic acid (chromotrope 2C) has been used for the colorimetric determination of microamounts of beryllium and zirconium. The red-violet complexes show maximum absorption at 580 nm and the colour systems obey Beer's law from 0.025 to 0.375 ppm of beryllium and 2 to 12 ppm of zirconium. The optimum concentration ranges are from 0.125 to 0.375 ppm for beryllium and from 4 to 12 ppm for zirconium, where the percent relative errors per 1% absolute photometric error are, respectively, 3.014 and 3.22. The sensitivity of the reactions per cm² are 0.00067 μg Be and 0.027 μg Zr. The complexes, with the metal to reagent ratio of 1∶1, have instability constants as 2.836 · 10⁻⁶ for beryllium and 6.026 · 10⁻⁶ for zirconium.