Spectrophotometric determination of molybdenum after separation by the adsorption of its trifluoroethylxanthate on naphthalene

Molybdenum reacts with potassium trifluoroethy xanthate to form a water-insoluble complex in the acid concentration range 0.1-3M, p H 1.0-3.5. This complex is easily adsorbed onto microcrystalline naphthalene from an acetone solution and adsorbs in the range 360-370 nm. Beer's law is obeyed over the concentration range 5.0-75.0 mu g of Mo in 10 ml of chloroform solution. The molar adsorptivity and Sandell sensitivity are 1.041 x 10 exp 4 l mol exp --1 cm exp --1 and 0.0092 mu g cm exp --2 , respectively. Ten replicate analyses of a sample solution containing 30 mu g of molybdenum gave a mean absorbance of 0.325 with a relative standard deviation of 0.60%. The interferences of various ions were studied and conditions were developed for the determination of molybdenum in some alloy samples. 17 ref.--AA