Spectrophotometric Detemination of Ruthenium After Extraction of Perruthenate with Benzyltributylammonium chloride

A simple and convenient extractive spectrophotometric method for the determination of ruthenium has been developed. It is based on the oxidation of the different ruthenium (II, III or IV) species to perruthenate with potassium periodate at pH 7.8. The perruthenate is then extracted with benzyltributylammonium chloride in chloroform followed by direct spectrophotometric measurements at 342 and 380 nm. The optimum concentration range was found to be 0.1–5 mg l−1, the standard deviation ±2.1%. The method has been successfully applied to the determination of ruthenium in organoruthenium compounds.