Quantitative Determination of Arsenate in Dried Shrimp by Spectrophotometric Measurement of its Heteropoly Blue
A cost-effective and sensitive spectrophotometric method for the determination of arsenate in dried shrimp has been developed using molybdenum blue as a chromogenic reagent. The method is based on arsenate conversion to arsenomolybdate heteropoly blue having an absorbance maximum at 870 nm. The effects of pH, time, temperature and light on its complex formation were investigated. The optimal complex formation condition at pH 4 in 90 min at 15+1°C was obtained and the blue color was favorable developed in daylight. The proposed method has been successfully applied for the determination of arsenate in samples with the addition of DTPA to eliminate the interferences resulting in increased selectivity. The standard addition calibration graph was constructed with the linear range extended to 40 μgL-1 (r2 = 0.9987). The detection limit (S/N = 3) of 3.21 μgL-1, and the precision of 3.13% (RSD) were obtained. The method has good recovery of 95% for the determination of arsenate. The amounts of arsenate in dried shrimp samples compared with those obtained from ICP-OES were shown to be in good agreement (r = 0.998).