Selective kinetic spectrophotometric determination of copper at nanograms per milliliter level

A sensitive and selective kinetic method is proposed for the determination of nanogram amounts of copper. The method is based on the catalytic effect of copper on the reduction of Ponceau S by sodium sulfide in an alkaline media. The rate of the reaction is monitored spectrophotometrically at 560 nm. The method allows determination of copper concentrations in the range 2-400 ng ml(-1) with a relative standard deviation of approximately 2%. The proposed method, which is highly selective to copper, has been applied satisfactory to its determination in real samples.