2004 Volume 53 Issue 12 Pages 1475-1479
Miniaturized coprecipitation with hydrous manganese(IV) oxide was studied for the preconcentration of sub μg/l levels of total antimony in river water samples. Manganese(IV) oxide was produced by a reaction of permanganate ion with ethanol in the presence of 0.1 mol/l nitric acid. A nanogram amount of antimony in a 10 ml sample was quantitatively coprecipitated. The precipitate was collected on a 10 μm membrane filter, and then dissolved in 100 μl of nitric acid(1 + 1) and 150 μl of hydrogen peroxide(1 + 15). A 40-fold preconcentration factor was obtained by this procedure. The detection limit(3 σ) was found to be 0.031 μg/l in the case of 40 μl injection into a graphite furnace. The interference of various metal ions was investigated with a mixture of metal ions at concentrations approximately equal to, or exceeding, those normally found in river water. The mixture of metal ions tested was found not to cause severe interference with the determination of antimony. The proposed method was successfully applied to river water samples.
