Flow-injection simultaneous determination of selenium(IV) and selenium(IV + VI) using photooxidative coupling of p-hydrazinobensenesulfonic acid with N-(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine

A flow-injection spectrophotometric method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of selenium(IV) and (IV + VI) at nanogram per milliliter levels. It is based on the catalytic effect of selenium(IV) on the photooxidative coupling of p-hydrazinobenzenesulfonic acid (HBS) with N-(1-naphthyl)ethylenediamine (NED) to form an azo dye (λmax = 538 nm). In this reaction, bromide acted as an activator for the catalysis of selenium(IV) and an reducer for selenium(VI) to selenium(IV) in an acidic medium which allowed the determination of selenium(IV + VI). A sample solution, being split by Y-piece into two portions, passed through the low-temperature coil (4 m, 25 °C) and the high-temperature coil (20 m, 100 °C). By monitoring the absorbance of the dye produced in the two portions, selenium(IV) and (IV + VI) in the range of 0.2–6 ng ml−1 were determined simultaneously. The relative standard deviations for 3 ng ml−1 selenium(IV) and (VI) (n = 10) were 1.2 and 1.3%, respectively. There were few interfering ions in the selenium determination. The proposed method was applied to the determination of selenium(IV) and (VI) in natural water samples.