TRACE-LEVEL DETERMINATION ION IRON IN HIGH-PURITY COPPER BY ION-PAIR LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY

Iron has been determined in commercial and high purity copper cables u sing high performance ion-pair liquid chromatography (IPC). The propos ed method avoids pre separation/preconcentration of trace impurities f rom bulk copper saving considerable sample preparation time. Tetrabuty l ammonium ion (TBA)(+) was mainly used as an ion pairing reagent. The UV detector response for iron and copper at various wavelengths has b een optimized. The accuracy of the developed method is tested by compa ring its results with inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spect rometry fbr the assay of iron in spiked solutions, standard reference material (SRM), and in locally available copper based electrical cable s. The relative standard deviation for sample 7 (n = 5) is 1.23%.