Determination of uranium at microgram levels by derivative polarography

Abstract

The incremental method of derivative polarography has been applied to the low-level analysis of uranium in acetate-buffered EDTA electrolyte. Optimum conditions are shown for the rapid determination of 2 × 10 −6 M uranium in the presence of 0.01 M bismuth and of 5 × 10 −6 M uranium in the presence of 0.01 M molybdenum, with a precision ⩽ 2% and without prior separation. Uranium in amounts ⩽ 10 μg may be detected in a 10 4-fold excess of bismuth. The method has been used successfully for the analysis of a bismuth alloy containing 0.1 % of uranium.