Titration of mixtures, selectivity, masking and demasking agents

47 TITRATION OF MIXTURES, SELECTIVITY. MASKING AND DEMASKING AGENTS 

EDTA is a very unselective reagent because it complexes with numerous doubly, triply and quadruply charged cations. When a solution containing two cations which complex with EDTA is titrated without the addition of a complex-forming indicator, and if a titration error of 0.1 per cent is permissible, then the ratio of the stability constants of the EDTA complexes of the two metals M and N must be such that KM/KN 106 if N is not to interfere with the titration of M. Strictly, of course, the constants KM and KN considered in the above expression should be the apparent stability constants of the complexes. If complex-forming indicators are used, then for a similar titration error KM/KN z 108. 

The following procedures will help to increase the selectivity  

By the use of masking agents, some of the cations in a mixture can often be masked so that they can no longer react with EDTA or with the indicator. An effective masking agent is the cyanide ion this forms stable cyanide complexes with the cations of Cd, Zn, Hg(II), Cu, Co, Ni, Ag, and the platinum metals, but not with the alkaline earths, manganese, and lead  

It is therefore possible to determine cations such as Ca2+, Mg2+, Pb2+, and Mn2+ in the presence of the above-mentioned metals by masking with an excess of potassium or sodium cyanide. A small amount of iron may be masked by cyanide if it is first reduced to the iron(II) state by the addition of ascorbic acid. Titanium(IV), iron(III), and aluminium can be masked with triethanolamine mercury with iodide ions and aluminium, iron(III), titanium(lV), and tin(II) with ammonium fluoride (the cations of the alkaline-earth metals yield slightly soluble fluorides). 

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