Janus Green Dye as a New Reagent for Catalytic Kinetic Determination of Zirconium in Ceramic Materials

A new catalytic kinetic spectrophotometric procedure for determination of trace quantities of zirconium was proposed. Janus Green was oxidized by potassium bromate and zirconium catalyst which then converted to a colorless product in acidic media. Reaction rate was monitored spectrophotometrically at 606 nm. It relies on the linear relationship between the absorbance difference (ΔAt) and Zr(IV) amounts in the range of 0.1-250 µg ml−1. Under optimum conditions, the sensitivity of the proposed method, i.e. the detection limit corresponding to 3 min is about 0.08 µg ml−1. The method is featured with good accuracy and reproducibility for zirconium(IV) determination in real samples. The method is simple, highly sensitive, selective and very stable.