A plumbagin-based UV–vis spectrophotometric method for lanthanum(III) determination in fertilizer samples: complexation, validation, and practical applicability
摘要
The complexation of lanthanum(III) with plumbagin (PLB) was investigated and applied to the development of a UV–Vis spectrophotometric method for La(III) determination in inorganic fertilizer samples. The La(III)–PLB system exhibited a characteristic absorbance response in the 300–320 nm region, while Job’s plot and mole-ratio analyses supported an apparent 1:3 La stoichiometry under the selected experimental conditions. The apparent conditional formation constant was estimated as logβ3,app ≈ 13.7. Under optimized conditions, the proposed method showed good linearity over the concentration range of 7.19 × 10–6–3.24 × 10–4 M, following the regression equation A = 631.0644C + 0.0228 (R2 = 0.9995). The limits of detection and quantification were 1.73 × 10–6 and 5.25 × 10–6 M, respectively. The method was successfully applied to inorganic fertilizer samples, providing results comparable to those obtained by ICP-MS. Complementary spectroscopic analyses supported the formation of a La-containing PLB coordination system consistent with an apparent 1:3 coordination model. This work presents a simple, low-cost, and practically accessible UV–Vis approach for La(III) determination in selected fertilizer matrices.