Determination of Iron in Drug Biochemical and Biological Samples as a Thiocyanato Mixed Ligand Complex with Hydroxyamidine

Abstract

Abstract N-Hydroxy-N-o-tolyl-N′-phenylbenzamidine (HTPB) is presented as a new sensitive and highly selective reagent for determination of iron in drug, biochemical and biological samples in presence of thiocyanate. The red organge Fe(III)–HTPB–SCN mixed ligand complex is quantitatively extracted into benzene. The extraction of iron(III) as thiocyanato mixed ligand complex is quantitative in the acidity range between 0.2–0.7 M (1M=1 mol dm−3) hydrochloric acid. The effective molar absorptivity of the complex is 12000 l mol−1 cm−1 with Sandell’s sensitivity of 0.0046 μg of iron per cm2. On the basis of this sensitive color reaction, a simple, rapid, selective, and highly reproducible method for the extractive spectrophotometric determination of microgram amounts of iron in various drug, biochemical and biological samples has been developed. The method is free from most of the common metal ions and commonly used sequestering agents.