Spectrophotometric determination of microamounts of thorium with disodium salt of 2-(2-hydroxy-3,6-disulfo-1-naphthylazo)-benzenearsonic acid (Thorin) as a chromogenic reagent

Abstract

A sensitive spectrophotometric method has been developed for the determination of microamounts of thorium using 0.05% thorin in a 3M perchloric acid solution as a chromogenic reagent and measuring the absorbance at 544 nm. The complex of thorium thus formed, is stable for more than two months with a constant absorbance of ±0.55%. Beer's law is obeyed from 0 to 25 μg g⁻¹ of thorium in a solution with a molar absorptivity (ɛ544 nm) = 1.69×10⁴ M⁻¹ cm⁻¹ at 26±1 °C. Among the anions tested, only phosphate, acetate and cyanide at >200-fold excess of thorium interfere in the determination, whereas cations like Zn(II), Al(III), Na(I), Mg(II), and Ca(II) do not effect the absorbance. Thorium can be determined in the presence of oxalate, nitrate, tartrate, sulfate, thiosulfate, citrate, and ascorbate. The accuracy of the method has been checked by measuring the known concentration of thorium in the range of 100 μg-5 mg g⁻¹ and found to be in the range of 7.7–0.9%. The method has been applied successfully to determine thorium at μg g⁻¹ level in local ore samples with a precision of ±0.3%. The sensitivity of the method on Sandell's scale is 0.082±0.002 μg g⁻¹ cm⁻¹.