A convenient nanodrop spectrophotometric approach to determine cationic surfactant Tetraoctylammonium bromide (TOAB) in environmental and biological samples

Abstract

A simple and rapid determination of cationic surfactant Tetraoctylammonium bromide (TOAB) with the help of nanodrop spectrophotometer (NDS) has been developed and applied in real samples such as biological and environmental samples. The investigatory work is based on the enhancement of absorptivity of Sb(III)-I− complex in the presence of TOAB. The apparent molar absorptivity value of complex in terms of TOAB is 7.4 × 106 L mol−1 cm−1 at λmax 365 nm (≥ eightfold enrichment). The method obeys Beer’s law in a range from 0.05 to 0.4 ppm TOAB. The detection limit and limit of quantification value of the present nanodrop spectrophotometric method was found to be 5.0 × 10−3 ppm and 1.7 × 10−2 ppm, respectively, with ± 0.67% RSD. The correlation coefficient was found to be 0.999 with slope 1.0 and intercept 0.036. The method is highly sensitive and offers rapid micro level determination of TOAB in biological and environmental samples. The proposed investigation was applied successfully for the determination of cationic surfactant TOAB in environmental and biological samples.