Characterization of reactive impurities in methanol, ethanol, and 2-propanol by monitoring the activities of added ionic probes with ion selective electrodes

Abstract

The presence of reactive impurities compromises many important applications of solvents. It is shown that a wide variety of impurities can be detected and determined by adding such highly reactive probes as hydrogen, methoxide, copper(II), mercury(II), and fluoride ions and monitoring their activities over an appropriately wide range with the corresponding ion selective electrodes. The results for the alcohols show that typical reagent grades of these solvents contain amines at the 10/sup -5/ - 10/sup -4/ M (1-10 ppm) level as well as other reactive impurities. This approach is applicable to most polar solvents. It has the overriding merits that it detects impurities on the basis on their reactivities (rather than only their concentrations) and that its lower detection limit is self-adjusting in that it is lowest (most favorable) in the very solvents in which impurities are most harmful, i.e., relatively inert solvent. In such solvents, its lower detection limit can be much lower than that attainable with gas chromatography.