Abstract: The ultraviolet spectrophotometric method was employed for determining alkaline pentachlorophenol in water at a wavelength of 320 nm. The linear regressive equation is Y=0.0052X+0.0002 (320 nm) with a linear range of 1.88~187.73 μmol/L (r=0.999 9). The detection limit of the method is 0.27 μmol/L, the relative standard deviation (RSD) obtained is less than 5%, and the recovery range is 100.70%~103.75%. The method is suggested to be fast, convenient and repeatable; it is applicable to the batch determination of pentachlorophenol in the course of studying its environmental behavior in the laboratory.

Key words: pentachlorophenol, ultraviolet spectrophotometric method, environment al monitoring