Selective Kinetic Spectrophotometric Determination of Nitrite in Food and Water

Abstract
A highly selective and sensitive method for the kinetic spectrophothometric determination of sub-microgram amounts of nitrite has been development based on its reaction with Nile blue 2B in acidic medium. The reaction is monitored spectrophotometrically at 595 nm at a fixed time of 4.5 min. The change in absorbance at 595 nm is related to the concentration of nitrite in the range 0.005 - 1.100 μg.ml−1 The detection limit is 0.001 μg.ml−1. The relation standard deviation is 1% for 0.020 μg.ml−1 of nitrite for ten replicate measurements. Most common anions and cations do not interfere. The procedure was applied to the determination of trace amounts of nitrite in sausage and water.