Determination of bismuth in pharmaceutical products using phosphoric acid as molecular probe by resonance light scattering

A novel method for the sensitive determination of bismuth(III) in pharmaceutical products using phosphoric acid as a molecular probe by resonance light scattering (RLS) is discussed. In 0.5 mol/L phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄) medium, bismuth(III) reacted with PO₄^3? to form an ion association compound, which resulted in the significant enhancement of RLS intensity and the appearance of the corresponding RLS spectral characteristics. The maximum scattering peak of the system existed at 364 nm. Under optimal conditions, there was linear relationship between the relative intensity of RLS and concentration of bismuth(III) in the range of 0.06–10.0 µg/mL for the system. A low detection limit for bismuth(III) of 3.22 ng/mL was achieved. The relative standard deviations (RSD) for the determination of 0.40 and 0.80 µg/mL bismuth(III) were 2.1% and 1.1%, respectively, for five determinations. Based on this fact, a simple, rapid, and sensitive method was developed for the determination of bismuth(III) at nanogram level by RLS technique with a common spectrofluorimeter. This analytical system was successfully applied to determine the trace amounts of bismuth(III) in pharmaceutical products, which was in good agreement with the results obtained by atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.