Determination of uranium in mixed phosphoric acid samples: comparative studies using spectrophotometric method, volumetric method and inductively coupled plasma -optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES)

In the present work, Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES) has been used for the direct, rapid and accurate measurement of total concentration of uranium in Mixed Phosphoric Acid (MPA) samples. Under standard operating conditions of the ICP-OES instrument, Uranium estimation in 409.014nm, 409.038 nm and 385.957 nm were studied. From the study, the spectral line at 409.014 nm showed better signal -to - background intensity ratio and was free from spectral interferences. The proposed uranium determination methods were validated with in- house standard as well as by standard addition technique. The results of uranium content were compared favourably with spectrophotometric method (Arsenazo III), and titrimetric method (Davies and Gray)