Extractive spectrophotometric method for the determination of niobium in steels

A strongly coloured complex of niobium with PAR is formed in oxalate solutions and at pH 7.4 can be extracted into nitrobenzene as an ion-association complex with xylometazolonium ion (XMH), with a molar absorptivity of 46300 1 mol−1 cm−1 at 545 nm. In contrast to cationic extractants such as tetraphenylphosphonium or tetraphenylarsonium chloride, XMH is an effective extractant over a wide concentration range without any difficulties in either the separation of the phases or the absorbance of the reagent blank. Job's method of continuous variations revealed that the composition of the extracting species as 1 ∶ 1 ∶ 1 ∶ 1 for niobium ∶ oxalate ∶ PAR ∶ XMH. Based on this extraction, a highly sensitive and selective spectrophotometric method for the determination of niobium in various steels, after prior separation of iron, is described. 4-(2-Pyridylazo)resorcinol (PAR) reacts with the niobium tartrate complex in nearly neutral medium to form a red, water-soluble 1 ∶ 1 anionic complex [1]. PAR is an unselective reagent and one way of improving selectivity is by ternary and ion-association complex formation. The extraction of some highly coloured metal-PAR complexes with tetraphenylarsonium or tetraphenylphosphonium ion has been described [2, 3]. The PAR complex of niobium, which is formed in oxalate solutions has been shown to be extractable by chloroform using tetraphenylarsonium and phosphonium salts [4, 5]. However, in many of these extraction spectrophotometric procedures difficulties arise due to the delay in the separation of the two phases and significant absorbance of the reagent blank solution, particularly when concentrated solutions of reagents are used.