Antimony nitrogen hydrides

Certain volatile elements must be analyzed by special analytical procedures as irreproducible losses may occur during sample preparation and atomization. Arsenic, antimony, selenium, and tellurium are determined via the generation of their covalent hydrides by reaction with sodium borohydride. The resulting volatile hydrides are trapped in a liquid nitrogen trap and then passed into an electrically heated silica tube. This tube thermally decomposes these compounds into atoms that can be quantified by AAS. Mercury is determined via the cold-vapor... 

Compare the properties of antimony hydride with those of similar compounds of arsenic, phosphorus, and nitrogen (the thermal stability, reducing properties, etc.). 

These workers showed that dissolved arsenic and antimony in natural waters can exist in die trivalent and pentavalent oxidation states, and the biochemical and geochemical reactivities of these elements are dependent upon their chemical forms. They developed a method for the simultaneous determination of arsenic (III)+antimony (III+V)+ antimony (III+V) that uses selective hydride generation, liquid nitrogen cooled trapping, and gas chromatography-photoionisation detection. The detection limit for arsenic is lOpmol L 1 while that for antimony is 3.3pmol L 1 precision (as relative standard deviation) for both elements is better than 3%. 

Name the simplest hydrogen compounds of nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony. Compare the stability of these hydrides when heated. Compare any ability they may possess to unite with water to form bases, and with acids to form salts. 

The similarity of the elements is indicated by the formulas of their hydrides, NH3 (ammonia), PH (f osphine), AsHg (arsine), SI3H3, and BiHg, and of their highest oxides, NgO, P2O-, As O, Sb O., and Bi20-. This similarity is far from complete, however the principal acids formed by nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony have different formulas ... 

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