Differential Determination of Antimony (III) and Antimony (V) by Hydride Generation-Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry

From a weakly alkaline solution, antimony (III) was found to be reduced to stibine by sodium borohydride. This paper describes preliminary results for a differential determination of antimony (III) and antimony (V) by hydride generation-atomic absorption spectro photometry with a nitrogen-hydrogen flame. Antimony (III) is determined selectively up to 0.8 μg at pH 8 adjusted with borate buffer under the presence of antimony (V) at the level of 100-fold excess over antimony (III). A detection limit and a relative standard deviation are 10 ng (0.4 ng/mL) and 1.3%, respectively.