Spectrophotometric determination of Cu(II) in soil and vegetable samples collected from Abraha Atsbeha, Tigray, Ethiopia using heterocyclic thiosemicarbazone

Two selective and sensitive reagents, 2-acetylpyridine thiosemicarbazone (2-APT) and 3-acetylpyridine thiosemicarbazone (3-APT) were used for the spectrophotometric determination of Cu(II). Both reagents gave yellowish Cu(II) complex at a pH range of 8.0–10.0. Beer’s law was obeyed for Cu(II)–2-APT and Cu(II)–3-APT in the concentration range of 0.16–1.3 and 0.44–1.05 µg/mL, respectively. The molar absorptivity and of Cu(II)–2-APT and Cu(II)–3-APT were 2.14 × 104 at 370 nm, and 6.7 × 103 L/mol cm at 350 nm, respectively, while the Sandell’s sensitivity were 0.009 and 0.029 µg/cm2 in that order. The correlation coefficient of the standard curves of Cu(II)–2-APT and Cu(II)–3-APT were 0.999 and 0.998, respectively. The detection limit of the Cu(II)–2-APT and Cu(II)–3-APT methods were 0.053 and 0.147 µg/mL, respectively. The results demonstrated that the procedure is precise (relative standard deviation <2 %, n = 10). The method was tested for Cu(II) determination in soil and vegetable samples. Comparisons of the results with those obtained using a flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer for Cu(II) determination also tested the validity of the method using paired sample t test at the 0.05 level showing a good agreement between them.