Spectrofluorimetric determination of pentachlorophenol based on its inhibitory effect on the redox reaction between hydroxyl radicals and fluorescent dye rhodamine B.

Hydroxyl radicals that is generated by Fenton reagent reacts with rhodamine B, which makes the fluorescence quenching of rhodamine B. However, there is an inhibitory effect of pentachlorophenol on the reaction. Based on this observation, an inhibitory fluorimetric method is reported for the determination of trace pentachlorophenol. The fluorescent inhibition of rhodamine B is measured by fix-time method. On the optimum conditions of experimentation, the detection limit for pentachlorophenol is 3.0 ng/ml and the linear range of the determination is 4.0-240 ng/ml. Combined with the samples treating with ion exchange resins and XDA-1 absorption resin, the method has been used for the determination of pentachlorophenol in synthetic samples and natural water samples with satisfactory results. We have also discussed the possible mechanism of the reaction.