An Improved Method for the Isolation of Phenols from Water

Abstract

Abstract A rapid and sensitive method for the separation and isolation of phenols from waters is described. A column adsorption and desorption procedure is used prior to the analysis by colorimetry with aminoantipyrine. The determination of phenols in water may be accomplished by many different analytical methods. At mg/l levels and higher, ultraviolet absorption spectrophotometry is often used for analysis in waste and effluent waters1,2. Phenols are determined at ug/l by colorimetry using the aminoantipyrine method3. In this procedure the phenols are separated from non-volatile impurities by a distillation at pH 4. The aqueous phenolic solution is adjusted to the proper pH and reacted with 4-aminoantipyrine in the presence of potassium ferricyanide to produce a colored dye which is concentrated by extraction into chloroform. The absorbance of the chloroform solution is then measured. The distillation procedure for the separation of the phenols is quite time-consuming requiring a few hours for completion...