Improvement of Spectrophotometric Method for the Determination of Atrazine in Contaminated Water by Inducing of Mannich Reaction

The objective of this study is to develop a simple and economic spectrophotometric method for the quantitative determination of atrazine. This method is based on the complexation of atrazine derivatization (dechlorinated atrazine [DA]) with a mixture of formaldehyde and ketone compound, as described by Mannich reaction. The complex was determined by UV-Vis absorption measurement and the ketone compound used was the uranine due to its high coefficient absorption. The UV spectrum of the complex shows maxima of absorption at 207 nm and at 227 nm. An internal standard was used to quantify the atrazine. There is a good linearity between the absorbance and the concentration in the range of 0.1 - 10 ug.mL-1 of atrazine. The recovery value was 97 % and the limit of detection was 0.01 ug.mL-1. Real samples collected from irrigation local area were analyzed using this method and the estimated concentration of atrazine found in the mentioned river is 0.29 ± 0.011 ug.mL-1.