Nickel(II) Determination by Spectrophotometry Coupled with Preconcentration Technique in Water and Alloy Samples

A micro organism Agrobacterium tumifacient as an immobilized cell on a solid support was presented as a new biosorbent in a simple and sensitive spectrophotometry determination of Ni(II) in various samples using 4-hydroxy benzaldehyde-4-bromophenyl hydrazone as a color developing agent (λmax 497 nm) at pH 4.0 ± 0.2. Beer's law was obeyed over the range of 0.01-0.1 μg L-1. The molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity were 1.285 × 105 L mol-1cm-1 and 0.007245 μg cm-2 respectively. Under these conditions, the preconcentration factor obtained was 82, and the detection limit achieved was 0.05 μg L-1. The detailed study of various interfering ions made the method more sensitive and selective. The recovery of Ni(II) from various samples range from 97.75 to 99.35%. The present method was successfully applied for the determination of Ni(II) in spiked, natural water and alloy samples. The proposed method was compared with reported methods in terms of Student's ‘t'-test and Variance ratio ‘f'-test which indicates that there is no significant difference between proposed and literature method at 95% confidence level.