Abstract
For antimony, which is a highly toxic element and often detected in the environ ment, the valency differential determination as well as the determination of total con centration in living organism samples were performed. About the valency differential determination, the sample solution prepared from antimony trioxide and antimony pentaoxide was measured. As a result, the valency fractional determination was successfully conducted with high recoveries of more than85% and high reproducibilities of less than 10.5 %. In the previous studies, hydrophilic antimony compounds, such as antimony potassium tartarate has been used; those com pounds are easy to analyze, however the industrial production of them is considerably small, so that the amount of those compounds discharged into the environment should be small. Consequently, it was found that the antimony compounds, such as antimony trioxide and antimony pentaoxide, for which the chemical forms are quite common in the production and utilization, could be easily determined. About the determination of total antimony concentration in living organism sam ples, the addition of tartaric acid solution after the acid-digestion process resulted in the favorable determination with high recoveries of more than 96%. By use of this method, the total antimony concentrations in several freshwater organisms in which it was exposed to the antimony, could be measured.
