A simple, selective and highly sensitive extraction method has been developed for the determination of
iron(II) spectrophotometrically after solid phase extraction. The absorbance is measured at kmax 644 nm.
Beer’s law was obeyed up to 450 ng mL1 of iron. The molar absorptivity, Sandell’s sensitivity, detection
and quantification limits were calculated and found to be 1.09 105 L mol1 cm1, 0.51 ng cm2, 1.98
and 6.0 ng mL1, respectively and compared with parameters obtained without using solid phase extraction
method. After reduction of Fe(III) by addition of 2.0 mL of 10% hydroxylamine HCl, the system was
applied to the total iron. The interference of various ions has been studied in detail and the statistical
evaluation of the experimental results is reported. The proposed methods have been successfully applied
for the determination of trace amount of iron in environment water, soil and botanical reference materials
with recovery range (98.71–101.51%).