NEW ACID-BASIC INDICATORS: RESEARCH USING A SMARTPHONE

Abstract

Modern cameras, desktop scanners, smartphones allow not only registering an image, but also determining its color characteristics. That allows us to quickly, objectively and automatically determine the color characteristics of colored samples in acid-base titration, because there is a significant error at visually determining the pH range of the color transition. In analytical chemistry the characteristics of acid-base indicators are very important, in particular their pH transition interval. But the disadvantage of most indicators is the wide range of color transition: from 1 to 3 pH units. The aim of this work is to find new acid-base indicators that change color in an alkaline environment and have a narrow pH range of the color transition. We have developed the apparatus and technique of convenient and highprecision simultaneous determination of the pH of the medium and the color of the acidbase indicators. In acid-base titration the PH measurements were performed with a combined glass electrode AD1131 by рН-meter AD1000. The color transition was determined with help of a smartphone with the subsequent processing of the results by computer software. The color characteristics were measured for each channel of the RGB model in the range from 0 to 255. Our apparatus is small and mobile, and allows us simultaneously to measure the pH of the medium and accurately to determine the color characteristics. As a result, we can construct graphical dependencies of color on pH for each channel of the RGB model. We found the N-arylsulfonyl-2-aroylamido-1,4-benzo(naphto)quinone monoimines and 2,5-dibenzoylamido-1,4-benzoquinone are good acid-base indicators. They “work” in the pH range from 8.82 to 11.35 and have a very narrow color transition interval from 0.10 to 0.61. Solutions of these compounds in an alkaline medium have bright intense colors due to formation of mesomeric ions. That allows using of these indicators in the titration of weak acids with strong bases and vice versa by the method of neutralization.