Extraction spectrophotometric determination of selenium(IV) with J acid in environmental samples

A new simple and sensitive method for the extraction and spectrophotometric determination of selenium(IV) is described. Selenium(IV) is reacted with J acid (6-ANSA) to form a butanol extractable complex with maximum absorbance of 520 nm. Beer's law is obeyed in the range of 0.03-0.3 mg/l. of selenium. Molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity are found to be 18.5 ± (0.1) × 10 3 l. mol −1. cm −1 and 0.004 μg/cm 2, respectively. The analytical parameters were optimized and the method applied for the determination of selenium in polluted water, soil, dust, hair and plant materials. The method is compared with other reported methods and found to be superior to many of the reported methods.