Selective metals determination with a photoreversible spirobenzopyran.

The photoreversible metal-ion complexation behavior of nitroquinolinospiropyranindoline (NQSP) was studied in combination with the selective identification of six different transition-metal ions, Zn(2+), Co(2+), Hg(2+), Cu(2+), Cd(2+), and Ni(2+), in single- and binary-component mixtures via partial least squares discriminant (PLSD) analysis. The plasticizer, dicapryl phthalate, was chosen as the support medium for this study on the basis of (1) its enhancement of the photoreversibility and hypsochromic shifts seen in metal complexation and (2) its potential application to supported liquid membranes for eventual sensor applications. Complexation of divalent transition-metal ions by NQSP in dicapryl phthalate produced variable hypsochromic shifts in the absorption spectra (30-60 nm), requiring chemometric techniques in order to overcome the spectral overlaps. PLSD analysis was used to build classification analysis models to differentiate between the six divalent transition-metal ions. The feasibility of performing mixture analysis was studied using the concept of net analyte signal prior to experimental verification. Single- and binary-component mixtures of metals were identified with 100 and 97.4% accuracy, respectively, which included no false positives in either the training or prediction sets.