Catalytic flow-injection determination of reactive iron in non-acidified water samples

A flow-injection determination method was proposed for the speciation of reactive species of iron in non-acidified water samples. Iron was determined by the spectrophotometric monitoring of the iron-catalyzed oxidation of o-phenylenediamine with hydrogen peroxide. The reactive iron was characterized as Fe3+ and Fe(III)Li(3-in), where i = 1 or 2 for a unidentate ligand and i = 1 for a bidentate ligand (L(n-)) from the chemical equilibria of hydroxo, oxalato and fluoro Fe(III) complexes. A useful parameter was also proposed to check the reliability of the determination when suffering the adsorption of iron on the inner wall of a PTFE tube of a flow-injection system. Under the optimized FIA condition and by measuring the peak height, a linear calibration curve of iron was obtained up to 0.1 mg L(-1) with a detection limit of 0.1 microg L(-1). The proposed method was successfully applied to the speciation of reactive and unreactive iron in tap- and river-water samples.