A new sensitive spectrophotometric determination of cypermethrin insecticide in environmental and biological samples

A new and highly sensitive spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of parts per million levels of widely used cypermethrin insecticide. The method is based on alkaline hydrolysis of cypermethrin to cyanide ion, which further reacts with potassium iodide and leuco crystal violet. The absorption maxima of the crystal violet dye formed was measured at 595 mu in acidic medium. Beer's law obeys over the concentration range of 3.0 to 17 mu g in a final solution volume of 25 mL (0.12-0.68 ppm). The molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity were found to be 3.3x10(5) L mol(-1) cm(-1) and 0.054 mu g cm(-2), respectively. The standard deviation and relative standard deviation were found to be 0.001 and 0.22%, respectively. The method is simple, sensitive and free from interferences of other pesticides and diverse ions. Other pyrethroid insecticides do not interfere in the proposed method. The method has been satisfactorily applied to the determination of cypermethrin in environmental and biological samples.