Abstract
Iron, one of the most common metals in the environment, plays a fundamental role in many biological as well as biogeochemical processes, which determine its availability in different oxidation states. Its relevance in environmental and industrial chemistry, human physiology, and many other fields has made it necessary to develop and optimize analysis techniques for accurate determination. Spectrophotometric methods are the most frequently applied in the analytical determination of iron in real samples. Taking advantage of the fact that desferrioxamine B, a trihydroxamic acid used since the 1970s in chelation therapy for iron overload treatment, forms a single stable 1:1 complex with iron in whichever oxidation state it can be found, a smart spectrophotometric method for the analytical determination of iron concentration was developed. In particular, the full compliance with the Lambert-Beer law, the range of iron concentration, the influence of pH, and the interference of other metal ions have been taken into account. The proposed method was validated in terms of LoD, LoQ, linearity, precision, and trueness, and has been applied for total iron determination in natural water certified material and in biological reference materials such as control human urine and control serum.
Highlights
Iron is an extremely widespread metal of high relevance in environmental, industrial and biological contexts
Taking advantage of the fact that desferrioxamine B, a trihydroxamic acid used since the 1970s in chelation therapy for iron overload treatment, forms a single stable 1:1 complex with iron in whichever oxidation state it can be found, a smart spectrophotometric method for the analytical determination of iron concentration was developed
Since DFO forms an extremely stable intensely red colored 1:1 complex with Fe3+ in a wide pH range, and the same complex is immediately formed in air even starting from a Fe2+ solution, here we present its analytical applications in the spectrophotometric determination of total iron, and a thorough evaluation of its pros and cons
Summary
Iron is an extremely widespread metal of high relevance in environmental, industrial and biological contexts. The development of reliable analytical methods devoted to measuring its total concentration is of primary importance. Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), ion chromatography (IC), inductively coupled plasma (ICP-AES and ICP-MS), controlled-potential methods, and ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry (UV-vis) are the most used techniques. The design and development of spectrophotometric methods for quantitative detection has gained increasing interest among analytical chemists due to their high selectivity, sensitivity, cost-effectiveness, simplicity, and low detection limit. Different reagents, each one characteristic for a single iron oxidation state, have been used for (Tables 1 and 2) [1,2,3]. Despite the high sensitivity allowed by the use of these reagents, the methods require troublesome procedures for total iron determination
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