Extraction-spectrophotometric determination of boron and antimony in carbon and low-alloy steels with mandelic acid and malachite green.
A very simple and sensitive extraction method using mandelic acid and Malachite Green has been applied to the determination of boron and antimony in steels (carbon and low-alloy). When chlorobenzene is used as the solvent, boron and antimony are simultaneously extracted as ion-pairs of their mandelates with Malachite Green from weak acidic media, but only the boron compound is extracted in the presence of tartrate. Antimony is determined from the difference in absorbance of the extracts. In the case of benzene, boron alone was extracted and determined. Large amounts of iron(II) and other metal cations do not interfere, so the steel samples are dissolved in dilute sulphuric acid. Very low boron (0.0009-0.0091%) and antimony (0.002-0.02%) contents in steel are easily determined without any pretreatment.
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Faculty of Education, Kumamoto University, 2-40-1, Kurokami, Kumamoto 860, Japan.