Rapid chromite dissolution using manganese dioxide-lithium-sulphate-sulphuric acid mixture-estimation of alumina in chromite for quality control assessment

Proposed in this paper is a less labour-intensive method involving a mixture (0.3 g MnO2 + 1.0 g Li2SO4 + 10 mL H2O + 20 mL of 36 M H2SO4 for 0.2 g sample) to decompose chromites for accurate and precise estimation of alumina in chromite matrices for quality control (QC) assessment. Several international chromite samples, namely, CHR-BKg, CHR-Pt, IGS-30 and BCS-308 were analysed. Intermethod comparison studies reveal that the probability of results being different is less than (slight variation in case of CHR-BKg) 99% when two methods [ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) titration and spectrophotometry using ammonium aurinitricarboxylate (aluminon)] were compared. It also shows that the proposed method yields better results than the most conventional route involving HClO4 decomposition used for similar purpose; hence can be used for QC programme and in the evaluation of reference materials.