Extractive photometric determination of palladium with o-mercaptobenzoic acid

Abstract

A procedure is described for the extractive photometric determination of palladium(II) with o-mercaptobenzoic acid. The reagent forms a yellow complex having maximum absorption at 365–370 mμ. The complex is quantitatively extractable with chloroform in the presence of pyridine at pH 5.2–7.2. The color develops immediately at room temperature and is very stable. Beer's law conforms over the range of 0.37–5.86 ppm of palladium. Most of the cations do not interfere in the presence of ascorbic acid and EDTA. Gold and silver are effectively masked with excess of thiocyanate prior to the addition of ascorbic acid and EDTA. Many common anions do not interfere. The molar absorptivity and Sandell sensitivity are 16.7 × 10 3 and 0.0065 μg/cm 2. The reagent forms a 2:1 complex with palladium. The proposed method is simple, rapid, and selective for the determination of palladium(II).