tying up calcium, magnesium, iron and manganese
ions, thereby improving overall washing performance.
The builders are particularly necessary in hard water.
Without builders, the manufacturers would have to add
more surfactants which are relatively more expensive3.
Phosphate is also important during sugarcane juice
clarification leading to cane sugar manufacture. In this
context, the chemical action of phosphate assumes a
significant role particularly when the juice is deficient
in natural phosphate content in range of 300 – 350 ppm
as P2O5 which is essential for good clarification. In case
of less phosphate content in sugarcane juice, soluble
phosphate addition is the only alternative to achieve
the target value by adding ortho phosphoric acid, single
super phosphate or triple super phosphate3.
The spectrophotometric molybdenum blue method for
determining phosphate is a well established method. It
involves the formation of molybdophosphoric acid from
ortho phosphate and an excess of molybdate in acidic
solution followed by reduction to give molybdenum
blue. The absorbance of thus produced molybdenum
blue is measured spectrophotometrically at a certain