A simple and high-selective method was employed for rapid determination of total iron in water and food samples in this paper.
Total iron can be efficiently determined based on the colored complex formation of Fe(II) with 5-Br-PADAP, followed by dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction of the formed complex and subsequent UV–vis spectrophotometry detection. The sensitivity of the method is extensively enhanced since only the Fe(II)-Br-PADAP complex can produce the absorbance peak at 740 nm. Besides,the procedure is economic and environmentally friendly due to low organic solvent consumption, low time consumption and low instrumentation cost. The method can be successfully proposed for the total iron assay in routine water and food analyses.