Spectrophotometric determination of trace amounts of phenol in waste water and biological fluids

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Abstract
A spectrophotometric method based on the indophenol reaction is described for the determination of phenol in water and biological fluids. Phenol reacts with ammonia and N-chlorosuccinimide in alkaline media with sodium nitroprusside as a catalyst to give a greenish blue indophenol dye. The dye has a maximum absorption at 670 nm. Beer's law is obeyed in the range 0.3–2.4 p.p.m. The molar absorptivity and the Sandell sensitivity are 3.30 × 104 l mol–1 cm–1 and 0.0028 µg cm–2, respectively. The reaction conditions and other analytical parameters have been optimised. The method has been successfully applied to the determination of phenol in waste water and biological fluids.