Determination of total phosphorus in waters and wastewaters by on-line UV/thermal induced digestion and flow injection analysis

✍ Scribed by Richard L. Benson; Ian D. McKelvie; Barry T. Hart; Yen B. Truong; Ian C. Hamilton

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 899 KB
• Volume: 326
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-2670
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-2670(96)00044-x

✦ Synopsis

An on-line flow-injection system for the determination of total phosphorus in haters and wastewaters is described.

Digestion was performed using a UV photoreactor and a thermal digestion unit connected in series. The orthophosphate formed was detected as phosphomolybdenum blue after on-line filtration. Reagent and digestion conditions required to give optimal oxidation and hydrolysis of organic and condensed model compounds are reported. The flow-injection method gave complete recovery for all the model organic P compounds tested, and >85% recovery for condensed phosphates. When the proposed method was applied to a series of wastewater samples, the results obtained were in close agreement with those from a conventional batch digestion method. The technique was rapid (8 samples hh' 4 rephcates), with a linear range of interest for wastewaters O-18 mg Pl-' and a detection limit of 0.15 mgPl_'.