Improving the measurement of total dissolved sulfide in natural waters: A new on-site flow injection analysis method

Abstract

Total dissolved sulfide (TDS) plays multiple important roles in the aquatic environments. However, the determination of trace levels of TDS in natural waters is challenging because TDS is vulnerable to oxidation and volatilization. In this study, a fully automated flow injection analysis spectrophotometric system, incorporating a hollow fiber membrane contactor (HFMC) and a long path length liquid waveguide capillary cell, was fabricated to facilitate the on-site measurement of trace TDS in natural waters. The HFMC was used for matrix separation and analyte preconcentration. The measurement was based on the reaction of sulfide and N,N-dimethyl-p-phenylenediamine in the presence of FeCl3 under acidic conditions to yield methylene blue (MB). The proposed method was highly sensitive, with detection and quantification limits of 0.57 and 1.90 nmol L−1, respectively. The linear working range was from 1.90 to 150 nmol L−1, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9995. The repeatability, expressed as the relative standard deviation, was less than 0.86% (n = 15) and the recoveries varied from 76.2 ± 0.1% to 103.9 ± 0.6% (n = 3) for spiked samples. This method was applied to conduct a field analysis of TDS in a reservoir, giving results aligned with those obtained using a standard MB method. This work demonstrates that the new method for determining TDS was effective for both laboratory analysis and on-site measurement.