Reagent quality advanced applications

Spectrophotometric procedures, including absorptimetric and fluo-rimetric, will continue to be popular and important because they can be sensitive and accurate, and because the necessary instruments are now famihar laboratory tools. Intrinsically, fluorimetric methods can be several orders of magnitude more sensitive than absorptimetric. To date, most direct fluorimetric methods are for the determination of metals, while anions are determined by their quenching action on fluorescent compounds. Hopefully, other new direct fluorimetric reagents for anions similar to the one described above for cyanide ion using quinone monoxime benzene sulfonate ester will be developed either as the result of chance observations or the application of increased fundamental knowledge of the fluorescence process. There probably will be few if any major advances in the quality of the instruments used in these methods improved methods mainly will be the result of more sensitive and more selective analytical reagents. 

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