A high-sensitive spectrofluorimetric method for the determination of micromolar concentrations of iron(III) in bovine liver with 4-hydroxyquinoline.

A new sensitive, rapid and accurate spectrofluorimetric method, suitable for the determination of micromolar concentrations of iron(III) in bovine liver, using 4-hydroxyquinoline (4-HQ) in an alkaline medium (KOH 2.0 x 10(-2) mol/l) as fluorescent agent, is described. The fluorescence intensity of the working solutions was measured at lambda ex 305 nm and lambda em 380 nm. The observed decrease of the above mentioned intensity was mainly due to the quenching, caused by the interaction between the iron(III) to be analysed and the potentially fluorescent 4-HQ. The accuracy and the precision of the proposed method, after an experimental investigation, could be considered as very satisfactory. Potassium fluoride and triethylenetetramine solutions were successfully used for the masking of those metal cations existing in the bovine liver which interfere seriously with the determination of iron(III).