A novel solvent extraction separation method has been proposed for the determination of microgram level concentration of gold(III) in real samples. It involves rapid and quantitative extraction of gold by N-ndecylaminopyridine, a high molecular weight amine (HMWA), in xylene from aqueous sodium malonate medium in the pH range 7 - 10. The gold(III) from an organic phase is stripped with 1 M HNO3 acid and determined spectrophtometrically with stannouschloride. The effect of concentration of malonate, extractant, metal ion, pH of various diluents, stripping agents and other substances on the quantitative extraction of gold(III) have been assessed. The method is applicable for the separation and determination of gold(III) from binary mixtures, synthetic mixtures, alloys and pharmaceutical sample is discussed. The method is highly selective, simple and reproducible. The molar absorptivity and Sandell’s sensitivity of Gold(III))-N-n-decylaminopyridine complex are (6.5×105 L mol-1 cm-1) and (0.0024 ug cm-2), respectively which indicates the applicability of the method.
