Chlorine is a widely used disinfectant and oxidant used for an array of municipal and industrial applications, including potable water, swimming pools, and cleaning of membranes. The most popular method to verify the concentration of free chlorine is the colorimetric method based on DPD (N, N-diethyl-p-phenylenediamine), which is fast and reasonably cheap, but DPD and its product are potentially toxic. Therefore, a novel, environmentally friendly colorimetric method for the quantification of residual chlorine based on the food additive pyridoxamine (4-(aminomethyl)-5-(hydroxymethyl)-2-methylpyridin-3-ol) was investigated. Pyridoxamine is a B6 vitamin with an absorption maximum at 324 nm and fluorescence emission at 396 nm. Pyridoxamine reacts rapidly and selectively with free chlorine, resulting in a linear decrease both in absorbance and in emission, giving therefore calibration curves with a negative slope. The pyridoxamine method was successfully applied for the quantification of free chlorine from 0.2 to 250 mg/L. Using 1 cm cuvettes, the limit of quantification was 0.12 mg Cl₂/L. The pyridoxamine and the DPD methods were applied to actual environmental samples, and the deviation between results was between 4% and 9%. While pyridoxamine does not react with chloramine, quantification of monochloramine was possible when iodide was added, but the reaction is unfavourably slow.

Chlorine is a widely used disinfectant and oxidant used for an array of municipal and industrial applications, including potable water, swimming pools, and cleaning of membranes. The most popular method to verify the concentration of free chlorine is the colorimetric method based on DPD (N, N-diethyl-p-phenylenediamine), which is fast and reasonably cheap, but DPD and its product are potentially toxic. Therefore, a novel, environmentally friendly colorimetric method for the quantification of residual chlorine based on the food additive pyridoxamine (4-(aminomethyl)-5-(hydroxymethyl)-2-methylpyridin-3-ol) was investigated. Pyridoxamine is a B6 vitamin with an absorption maximum at 324 nm and fluorescence emission at 396 nm. Pyridoxamine reacts rapidly and selectively with free chlorine, resulting in a linear decrease both in absorbance and in emission, giving therefore calibration curves with a negative slope. The pyridoxamine method was successfully applied for the quantification of free chlorine from 0.2 to 250 mg/L. Using 1 cm cuvettes, the limit of quantification was 0.12 mg Cl2/L. The pyridoxamine and the DPD methods were applied to actual environmental samples, and the deviation between results was between 4% and 9%. While pyridoxamine does not react with chloramine, quantification of monochloramine was possible when iodide was added, but the reaction is unfavourably slow.

Chlorine is a widely used disinfectant and oxidant used for an array of municipal and industrial applications, including potable water, swimming pools, and cleaning of membranes. The most popular method to verify the concentration of free chlorine is the colorimetric method based on DPD (N, N-diethyl-p-phenylenediamine), which is fast and reasonably cheap, but DPD and its product are potentially toxic. Therefore, a novel, environmentally friendly colorimetric method for the quantification of residual chlorine based on the food additive pyridoxamine (4-(aminomethyl)-5-(hydroxymethyl)-2-methylpyridin-3-ol) was investigated. Pyridoxamine is a B6 vitamin with an absorption maximum at 324 nm and fluorescence emission at 396 nm. Pyridoxamine reacts rapidly and selectively with free chlorine, resulting in a linear decrease both in absorbance and in emission, giving therefore calibration curves with a negative slope. The pyridoxamine method was successfully applied for the quantification of free chlorine from 0.2 to 250 mg/L. Using 1 cm cuvettes, the limit of quantification was 0.12 mg Cl₂/L. The pyridoxamine and the DPD methods were applied to actual environmental samples, and the deviation between results was between 4% and 9%. While pyridoxamine does not react with chloramine, quantification of monochloramine was possible when iodide was added, but the reaction is unfavourably slow.

Food colorants are an important class of food additives that give the first impression to consumers about the quality of food. Ce(IV)-reducing antioxidant capacity assay originally developed in our laboratories was adapted to the determination of synthetic food colorants for the first time. This method allowing for total antioxidant capacity assay of dietary polyphenols, flavonoids, and ascorbic acid in plant extracts is based on the room temperature oxidation of antioxidant compounds with Ce(IV) sulfate in dilute H2SO4 solution and measurement of the absorbance of unreacted Ce(IV) at 320 nm. The results of the proposed method were correlated with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) findings. Individual standard solutions, synthetic mixtures of synthetic colorants, and colorant extracts were identified and quantified with HPLC on a C18 column equipped with a diode array detector, and slight modifications on the existing HPLC method were made to analyze synthetic colorant mixtures. This work proposes Ce(IV)-oxidative spectrophotometry as a complementary technique to HPLC in the analysis of food colorants.

We applied novel vortex-assisted ionic liquid dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (VA-IL-DLLME) method to preconcentration and extraction of Se(IV) ions from water, beverage and food samples. The method was optimized using central composite design combined with the response surface analysis. After extraction, inorganic selenium species (total Se, Se(IV) and Se(VI)) were determined by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry. 1-n-Octyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethane)-sulfonamide [C8mim NTf2] and tetrahydrofuran were used as the extraction and dispersive solvents, respectively. Applied vortex assisted the extractant dispersion and accelerated the mass transfer process. Obtained optimum conditions for microextraction procedure are as follows: mass of [C8mim NTf2], pH, extraction time and THF volume should be equal to 85 mg, 6.8, 15 min and 730 μL, respectively. Under these conditions, we observed linear range, limit of detection and enrichment factor equal to 5−500ng L⁻¹, 1.5 ng L⁻¹ and 120, respectively. We also fount linear regression coefficients in the dependence between Absorbance and Se(IV) concentration: Absorbance = 0.0652 CSₑ₍IV₎ + 0.0185. We added 200 μg kg⁻¹ of Se(IV) to selected food samples and 100 ng L⁻¹ of Se(IV) to selected waters and beverages. Relative standard deviations and recovery values were within the ranges of 2.4–3.5 % and 92.7÷103.4 %, respectively. The optimized VA-IL-DLLME method reported here provides high extraction efficiency, fast extraction and lower detection limit without a heating step than alternative microextraction methods. This method also requires environmental solvents for determination and preconcentration of trace Se species in the selected samples. In addition, the reported VA-IL-DLLME procedure is the first method which use [C8mim NTf2] as extraction solvent for the preconcentration and separation of Se(IV) ions.

A new, sensitive, and simple combined method including ionic liquid (IL)-based dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction and partial least squares method (PLS) was developed for simultaneous preconcentration and determination of cobalt and nickel in water and food samples. In this work, a small amount of an IL 1-hexyl-3-methylimmidazolium bis (trifluormethylsulfonyl)imid ([Hmim][Tf₂N]) as an extraction solvent was dissolved in ethanol as a disperser solvent and then the binary solution was rapidly injected by a syringe into the water sample containing Co²⁺ and Ni²⁺, which were complexed by 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol. After preconcentration, the absorbance of the extracted ions was measured in the wavelength range of 200–700 nm. The partial least squares method was then applied for simultaneous determination of each individual ion. The parameters controlling the behavior of the system were investigated and optimum conditions were selected. Eleven binary mixtures of cobalt and nickel were selected as the calibration set. The calibration models were validated with four synthetic mixtures containing the metal ions in different proportions, which were randomly designed. The best calibration model was obtained by using PLS-1 regression. Calibration graphs were linear in the range of 2.0–20.0 and 2.0–15.0 ng mL⁻¹ with a limit of detection of 0.65 and 0.32 ng mL⁻¹ for cobalt and nickel, respectively. The root mean square errors of prediction for cobalt and nickel were 0.4032 and 0.2980, respectively. Satisfactory results were reported for simultaneous determination of trace levels of cobalt and nickel in water, food, and geological certified reference material samples.