Chemometric alternatives for resolution of classical analytical problems. Spectrophotometric determination of zirconium-hafnium mixtures

The determination of zirconium-hafnium mixtures is one of the most critical problem of the analytical chemistry, on account of the close similarity of their chemical properties, The spectrophotometric determination proposed by Yagodin et al. show not many practical applications due to the significant spectral interference on the 200-220 nm region, In this work we propound the use of a multivariate calibration method called partial least squares ( PLS) for colorimetric determination of these mixtures, By using PLS and 16 calibration mixtures we obtained a model which permits determination of zirconium and hafnium with accuracy of about 1-2% and 10-20%, respectively. Using conventional univariate calibration the inaccuracy of the determination is about 10-25% for zirconium and above 57% for hafnium.