Establishment of heterodinuclear replacement complexation and its application to direct determination of iron in natural water with dibromo-o-nitrophenylfluorone

The chromophore dibromo-o-nitrophenylfluorone (DBNPF) was used to complex Fe(III) and Cu(II) at pH 5.88. Fe(III) can competitively replace Cu(II) from its dinuclear complex Cu(DBNPF)Cu, and forms the Cu(DBNPF)Fe heterodinuclear complex. The Fe-DBNPF and Cu-DBNPF complexes were also characterized by the spectral correction technique. The heterodinuclear replacement complexation (HRC) is proposed and first used for the quantitative detection of iron in trace level with high sensitivity and good selectivity by the light-absorption ratio variation approach. The limit of detection of Fe is 1.0 μg L^-1. The method has been successfully applied to the direct determination of Fe(II, III) dissolved and bound to suspended substances in natural water.