AUTOMATED-DETERMINATION OF SULFIDE BY COOL FLAME MOLECULAR-EMISSION SPECTROMETRY

A sensitive and selective cool flame emission spectrometric method for the determination of sulfide in environmental solution samples is described. The technique is based on passing the hydrogen sulfide liberated on acidification of samples with 3 M HCl into a cool, nitrogen-hydrogen diffusion flame and the resulting S2 molecular emission is measured at 384 nm. The method, which is automated, has a detection limit of 0.026 μg ml-1 for sulfide and relative standard deviations of 0.8-2.5% for repeated analyses. Under the optimized conditions, the proposed method is applicable over the concentration range 0.1-8.0 μg ml-1 of sulfide. Twenty samples can be analyzed in 1 h. The method has been applied to the determination of sulfide in waste water samples. © 1992.