Rapid spectroscopic determination of silver in Ag-loaded cellulosic materials

Abstract

A new procedure for the determination of silver (Ag) in Ag-loaded cellulosic materials is proposed that is based on a spectroscopic method. Two calibration models were established based on ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy (Model 1) and ratio spectrum-derivative spectrophotometry (Model 2). The correlation coefficient of Model 1 is 0.9852 when the concentration of silver ions (Ag+) in AgCl suspension system is < 1.0 mmol/l. By contrast, Model 2 exhibits an extended detection range, from 0 to 1.2 mmol/l, and its correlation coefficient was as large as 0.9941. The standard deviation of 0.8080 for Model 2 is substantially lower than that of Model 1 (1.0744), which explains why better reproducibility was achieved by the former. Validation experiments show the average relative errors for two models, 5.15% (Model 1) and 2.35% (Model 2), respectively, which indicates that predictability of Model 2 is better than that of Model 1. Compared with traditional methods, the proposed test procedures were simpler, human errors were reduced, and testing time was shortened. The new method has high precision and accuracy and is satisfactorily applied for the determination of silver in Ag-loaded cellulosic materials.