A Flow Method for Chemiluminescence Determination of Antimony(III) and Antimony(V) Using a Rhodamine B-Cetyltrimethylammonium Chloride Reversed Micelle System Following On-Line Extraction

Abstract

A rapid and sensitive flow method, based on the combination of on-line solvent extraction with reversed micellar mediated chemiluminescence (CL) detection using rhodamine B (RB), was developed for the determination of antimony(III) and antimony(V) in aqueous samples. The on-line extraction procedure involved ion-pair formation of the antimony(V) chloro-complex anion with the protonated RBH⁺ ion and its extraction from an aqueous hydrochloric acid solution into toluene, followed by phase separation using a microporous membrane. When in a flow cell of a detector, the ion-pair in the extract driven was mixed with the reversed micellar solution of cetyltrimethylammonium chloride in 1-hexanol-cyclohexane/water (0.60 mol dm⁻³ H₂SO₄) containing cerium(IV), its uptake by the reversed micelles and the subsequent CL oxidation of RB with Ce(IV) occurred easily, then the produced CL signal was measured. Using the proposed flow method under the optimized experimental conditions, a detection limit (DL) of 0.35 μmol dm⁻³ and a linear calibration graph with a dynamic range from DL to 16 μmol dm⁻³ were obtained for Sb(V) with a precision of 1.4% relative standard deviation (n = 5) at the Sb(V) concentration of 8.2 μmol dm⁻³. The present method was successfully applied to the determination of Sb(V) in water samples and to the differential determination of Sb(III) and Sb(V) in copper electrolyte industrial samples, where total antimony Sb(III) + Sb(V) was determined after oxidation of Sb(III) to Sb(V) with Ce(IV) and Sb(III) was calculated by difference, for which the DL was almost the same as that for Sb(V).