The invention provides a method for determining volatile 
phenol in water. In 
color reaction using 4-amino-antipyrine direct 
spectrophotometry to determine volatile 
phenol in water, the method uses Tween-80 as 
nonionic surfactant to play a role in stability augmentation and sensitivity enhancement, reduce 
system blank value and improve determination sensitivity. The method comprises the following steps: accurately shifting 1.00 mu g / mL of freshly prepared 
phenol-
standard solution or a certain amount of to-be-determined 
water sample subjected to predistillation into a 50mL colorimetric tube; adding water to a scale; adding 0.50 mL of ammoniacal 
buffer solution and fully mixing the materials; adding 0.40 mL of 1 percent Tween-80 solution and mixing the materials well; adding 1.50 mL of 2 percent 4-amino-antipyrine solution and fully mixing the materials for 2 minutes; adding 1.00 mL of 8 percent 
potassium ferricyanide solution, fully mixing the materials for 1 minute and keeping the mixture stand for 10 minutes; and then determining the 
absorbance value of the mixture. A 
colored compound solution prepared in the invention is stable for at least 2 hours, thus the stability of the 
colored compound solution is greatly enhanced than that in the prior method before improvement, and the 
colored compound solution is obviously lower in blank 
absorbance value and higher in sensitivity, and has 
detection limit lower than that of the 
national standard method. The method has the 
advantage of determining the volatile phenol in 
tap water samples, along with high 
recovery rate and accurate results.