Novel oxidation reaction of prochlorperazine with bromate in the presence of synergistic activators and its application to trace determination by flow injection/spectrophotometric method

A simple and fast flow injection spectrophotometric method for the determination of bromate in water samples was developed. The detection system is based on the oxidation of prochlorperazine (PCP) with bromate in strongly acidic medium. Large amounts of chloride and bromide was found, for the first time, to act as an activator, and to enhance the sensitivity for bromate detection. The oxidation product of PCP gives pink color, which can be used to monitor the reaction spectrophotometrically at 525 nm. Under the optimal conditions, the method is selective; only nitrite, chlorite and hypochlorite can interfere with the determination of bromate. The elimination of these three ions is discussed. The calibration graph for bromate determination was linear in the range of 10-130 μg L−1 with a detection limit of 2.3 μg L−1. The repeatability was satisfactory, with the relative standard deviation of 1.1% (25 μg L−1, n = 10). The sample throughput was 44 h−1. The proposed method was found to be highly reliable for screening drinking waters containing bromate, which is above or below legislation limit of 10 μg L−1.