Abstract

A simple flow injection spectrophotometric method based on the reaction of malachite green with sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS) was proposed to determine surfactants in leather wastewater. SDBS was determined in a Na2HPO4 -KH2PO4 buffer solution (pH7.0) at 622nm. Under the optimum conditions, the linear range for SDBS was 0.05-3.0mg l-1, and the relative standard deviation (n = 9) for 0.5mg/L SDBS was 0.81%. The proposed FI method has been applied to the determination of anionic surfactants in leather wastewater with satisfactory results.