Because of the important role of nitrite ion in producing toxic, carcinogenic and/or mutagenic N-nitrosamines in human body, on the one hand, 1 and its increasing use as a preservative in the food industry, on the other hand, 2,3 the determination of this anion in trace levels is of special interest.Besides a large number of analytical methodologies applicable to nitrite determination based on spectrophotometric, [4][5][6][7][8] chromatographic, 9-13 electrochemical, [14][15][16][17][18][19] 29 have also been reported in the literature. However, these nitrite ion-selective electrodes suffer from narrow linear ranges, high limits of detection and, especially, strong interference effects from such anionic species as perchlorate, thiocyanate and iodide.In this paper, we wish to report the use of the Co-Salen as an excellent ionophore for the preparation of a new highly selective and sensitive polymeric membrane electrode for nitrite ion. It is noteworthy, to the best of our knowledge, that this is the first time a Co(II) complex is used as an ionophore in constructing a NO2 -sensor.
ExperimentalReagents Reagent grade acetophenon (AP), benzyl acetate (BA), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), o-nitrophenyloctyl ether (NPOE), hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HTAB), tetrahydrofuran (THF) and high relative molecular weight PVC were purchased from Merck Chemical Company and used as received. Reagent grade sodium and potassium salts of all anions used (all from Merck) were of the highest purity available, and used without any further purification except for vacuum drying. Doubly distilled deionized water was used throughout.
Synthesis of cobalt-Schiff's base complexA 0.06 mol portion of CoCl2 was dissolved in 50 cm 3 of methanol and 0.06 moles of the required ligand was dissolved in a minimum amount of acetone and added dropwise to the metal salt solution. The mixture was refrigerated overnight. The crude cobalt chelate (Fig. 1) was isolated by filtration, and purified by recrystallization from acetone. (Found: C, 80.7; H, 3.9; N, 7.8; Co, 16.6; Calc. For C16H14N2O2Co: C, 80.9; H, 4.1; N, 7.8; Co, 16.7%).
Preparation of the electrodeThe general procedure to prepare the PVC membrane was to mix thoroughly 33 mg of powdered PVC, 3 -6 mg of ionophore CS, 2 -3 mg of cationic additive HTAB and 59 -62 mg of plasticizer (NPOE, NB, DBP, DOP, and BA). The mixtures were then dissolved in 3 ml of dry THF. The resulting clear mixtures were evaporated slowly until oily concentrated mixtures were obtained. Pyrex tubes (5 mm -ion concentration range (1.0 × 10 -6 -1.0 × 10 -1 M) and a very low detection limit (5.0 × 10 -7 M). The potentiometric response is independent of the pH of solution in the pH range 4.0 -9.5. The electrode shows advantages such as low resistance, fast response and, most importantly, good selectivity relative to a wide variety of inorganic and organic anions. In fact, the selectivity behavior of the proposed NO2 -ion-selective electrode shows great improvements compared to the previously reported electrodes for nitrite ion....