Arsenic molybdenum blue complex

Gravimetric methods and chemical methods, such as colorimetric measurements based on the arsenic-molybdenum blue complex (1,2,3) and arsine generation in combination with silver diethyldithiocarbamate (4, 5, 6,7), have been used to measure arsenic in aqueous media. Various instrumental methods such as differential pulse polarography (8), heated vaporization atomic absorption (9), arsine generation in combination with atomic absorption spectroscopy (10, 11, 12) or non-dispersive atomic fluorescence spectroscopy (13), and optical emission spectroscopy (14) can be used to determine arsenic in aqueous solutions. 

Phosphate. Phosphoms occurs in water primarily as a result of natural weathering, municipal sewage, and agricultural mnoff The most common form in water is the phosphate ion. A sample containing phosphate can react with ammonium molybdate to form molybdophosphoric acid (H2P(Mo202q)4). This compound is reduced with stannous chloride in sulfuric acid to form a colored molybdenum-blue complex, which can be measured colorimetrically. SiUca and arsenic are the chief interferences. 

The following procedure has been recommended by the Analytical Methods Committee of the Society for Analytical Chemistry for the determination of small amounts of arsenic in organic matter.20 Organic matter is destroyed by wet oxidation, and the arsenic, after extraction with diethylammonium diethyldithiocarbamate in chloroform, is converted into the arsenomolybdate complex the latter is reduced by means of hydrazinium sulphate to a molybdenum blue complex and determined spectrophotometrically at 840 nm and referred to a calibration graph in the usual manner. 

Molybdenum blue method. When arsenic, as arsenate, is treated with ammonium molybdate solution and the resulting heteropolymolybdoarsenate (arseno-molybdate) is reduced with hydrazinium sulphate or with tin(II) chloride, a blue soluble complex molybdenum blue is formed. The constitution is uncertain, but it is evident that the molybdenum is present in a lower oxidation state. The stable blue colour has a maximum absorption at about 840 nm and shows no appreciable change in 24 hours. Various techniques for carrying out the determination are available, but only one can be given here. Phosphate reacts in the same manner as arsenate (and with about the same sensitivity) and must be absent. 

Johnson and Pilson [229] have described a spectrophotometric molybdenum blue method for the determination of phosphate, arsenate, and arsenite in estuary water and sea water. A reducing reagent is used to lower the oxidation state of any arsenic present to +3, which eliminates any absorbance caused by molybdoarsenate, since arsenite will not form the molybdenum complex. This results in an absorbance value for phosphate only. 

Ammonium molybdate-benzidine test (DANGER THE REAGENT IS CARCINOGENIC.) Silicates react with molybdates in acid solution to form the complex silicomolybdic acid H4[SiMo12O40]. The ammonium salt, unlike the analogous phosphoric acid and arsenic acid compounds, is soluble in water and acids to give a yellow solution. The test depends upon the reaction between silicomolybdic acid and benzidine in acetic acid solution whereby molybdenum blue and a blue quinonoid oxidation compound of benzidine are produced. 

Fig. 15.8b has been used for the speciation or arsenic (as arsenite and arsenate) by use of the Molybdenum Blue reaction after complexation of As(V) with Mo(VI). A KIOs solution is used to oxidize AsOr in this case. The calibration garphs are linear In the range lO MO M for both ions and mixtures in ratios up to 20 1 can be readily resolved [38]. 

Silicate is determined by reaction with a solution of molybdate in an acidic medium to produce a complex molybdosilicic acid with a yellow color (400 nm). More accurate determinations are obtained by reduction of the complex to molybdenum blue (815 nm). Phosphates, arsenates, and german-ates cause interference because they react with molybdate to produce complexes of the same color. 

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