Synthesis and characterization of a 3-hydroxy-4-pyridinone chelator functionalized with a polyethylene glycol (PEG) chain aimed at sequential injection determination of iron in natural waters

The synthesis of a highly water soluble 3-hydroxy-4-pyridinone ligand, functionalized with a hydrophilic ethylene glycol chain (PEG-HPO), was successfully achieved and is reported together with that of its iron(III) complex. The improved hydrophilicity of both the PEGylated 3,4-HPO ligand and its iron(III) complex were fully investigated in an analytical application and, the new chelator is proposed for the spectrophotometric sequential injection determination of iron in waters. The new ligand provided better sensitivity and a lower LOD for iron determination than that obtained for N-alkyl-3-hydroxy-4-pyridinone ligands. The developed sequential injection method presents a dynamic working range of 0.10-1.00 mg Fe/L with a LOD of 48 μg/L. Due to the use of a sequential injection system, the overall effluent production was <2 mL corresponding to the consumption of 44 μg of PEG-HPO, 0.71 mg of NaHCO3, 0.92 mg of HNO3 and 500 μL of sample. Two reference samples were assessed for accuracy studies and a relative deviation <5% was obtained; eight waters samples were analyzed and the results compared with the reference procedure, and no statistical difference was observed for the two sets of results.