Simple and accurate method for determining dissolved inorganic carbon in environmental water by reaction headspace gas chromatography

• Published in: Journal of Separation Science
• Main Authors: Xie, Wei‐Qi, Gong, Yi‐Xian, Yu, Kong‐Xian
• Other Authors: State Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Engineering, South China University of Technology, China
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2017
• Subjects: Filtration and Separation; Analytical Chemistry; Carbonic acid
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jssc.201701061; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fjssc.201701061; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/jssc.201701061/fullpdf

Abstract We investigate a simple and accurate method for quantitatively analyzing dissolved inorganic carbon in environmental water by reaction headspace gas chromatography. The neutralization reaction between the inorganic carbon species (i.e. bicarbonate ions and carbonate ions) in environmental water and hydrochloric acid is carried out in a sealed headspace vial, and the carbon dioxide formed from the neutralization reaction, the self‐decomposition of carbonic acid, and dissolved carbon dioxide in environmental water is then analyzed by headspace gas chromatography. The data show that the headspace gas chromatography method has good precision (relative standard deviation ≤ 1.63%) and accuracy (relative differences ≤ 5.81% compared with the coulometric titration technique). The headspace gas chromatography method is simple, reliable, and can be well applied in the dissolved inorganic carbon detection in environmental water.