Highly Selective and Sensitive Spectrophotometric Determination of Trace Amounts of Silver Ion in Surfactant Media Using 2-Mercaptobenzoxazole

A simple and accurate spectrophotometric method for determination of trace amounts of silver ion in tap and wastewater solution and photographic solutions has been described. The spectrophotometric determination of silver ion using 2-mercaptobenzoxazole (MBO) in the presence of Triton X-100 as nonionic surfactant has been carried out. The Beer's law is obeyed over the concentration range of 0.1-9.0 μg mL^-1 of Ag⁺ ion with the detection limits of 1.6 ng mL^-1. The influence of type and amount of surfactant, pH, complexation time and amount of ligand on sensitivity of method were optimized. Finally the repeatability, accuracy and the effect of interfering ions on the determination of silver ion were evaluated. There is a good agreement between results of proposed method and atomic absorption spectrometry.