Sequential determination of uranium (IV), free acidity and hydrazine in a single aliquot

Abstract

A simple analytical procedure for the sequential determination of uranium (IV), free acidity and hydrazine in presence of hydrolysable ions is developed and described. In this method, first, uranium (IV) is determined using fiber optic aided spectrophotometry then same solution is used for determination of free acidity and hydrazine. Free acid is titrated with standard sodium carbonate solution after uranium (IV) is masked with EDTA. Once the end point for the free acid is determined at pH 3.0, an aliquot of formaldehyde is added to liberate the acid equivalent to hydrazine which is then titrated with the same standard sodium carbonate solution using an automatic titration system. The described method is simple, accurate and reproducible. The overall recovery of uranium (IV), nitric acid and hydrazine is 98% with 3% relative standard deviation respectively. The major advantage of the method is that it uses sodium carbonate a primary standard as titrant and generation of corrosive analytical wastes containing oxalate or sulphate is avoided. Valuable metals like uranium and plutonium can easily be recovered from analytical waste before final disposal.