A simple and reliable microdetermination of extremely small amounts of gallium in red mud, in which large amounts of aluminum and iron were generally present as interfering elements in the conventional methods of analyses, has been described.
The Ga
3+ can be separately extracted by isopropylether from 7
M HCl solution, in which 1030 μg of gallium is accompanied with 1020 mg of Al
3+, Fe
3+ and other smaller quantities of foreign metal ions, after the solution has been treated with titanium trichloride as a reducing agent. The isopropylether is then evaporated on a water bath and a few drops of 10% HNO
3 and 10 m
l of water are added to dissolve the residue completely.
A small amount of a masking agent containing NaF and Na
2B
4O
7 is then added to eliminate the last traces of Al
3+ and Ti
3+, and ascorbic acid to reduce the Fe
3+ completely. The solution is adjusted to pH 2 by NaOH solution and an excess of 10
-4M EDTA is added. Back titration with 10
-4M Bi(NO
3)
3 is successively carried out on the boiled solution in which xylenol orange is used as an indicator.
Thousand times of Al
3+ and Fe
3+ as well as 100 times of As
5+, Ge
3+, In
3+, MoO
42-, and Mn
2+ as large as the amount of Ga
3+ do not practically interfere. Nitric acid must be avoided in preparing the solution, since it destroyes titanium trichloride
View full abstract