Simultaneous determination of gallium(III) and indium(III) by derivative spectrophotometry

A simple, selective and sensitive derivative spectrophotometric method is proposed for the simultaneous determination of gallium(III) and indium(III) in mixtures using 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol in cationic micellar medium, without any prior separation. Beer's law is obeyed between 2.80 x 10(-1)-3.63 and 4.60 x 10(-1)-9.20 mug ml(-1) concentration of Ga(III) and In(III) at 550 and 542 nm, the isodifferential points of indium and gallium complexes in the first-order derivative mode, respectively. The proposed method is successfully applied for the determination of gallium and indium in standard reference materials and synthetic binary mixtures with a relative error of +/-2.07 and +/-2.55%, respectively. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.