LAUSR

Abstract A novel method based on UV–vis spectrometry is developed for simultaneous determination of zinc, nickel, cobalt and copper without any separation steps. The method studied in this paper is the combination of ratio spectra derivative and kalman filtering spectrophotometry. First, using absorbance of zinc standard solution as divisor, the ratio spectra derivative obtained can completely eliminate the interference of zinc on trace ions. Second, the trace ions are simultaneously determined by kalman filtering spectrophotometry. Last, based on obtaining trace ion concentrations, a calibration curve for zinc is established. The linear determination ranges are 10–70 mg/L for zinc, 0.2–1.4 mg/L for trace ions of nickel, cobalt and copper. The results show that the predicted results of zinc, nickel, cobalt and copper by this proposed method is superior to PLS method. The work reported here is an effective attempt for the simultaneous determination of zinc, nickel, cobalt and copper in industrial wastewater of zinc hydrometallurgy, and will have more applications.