Methods for the shipboard determination of dissolved iron and manganese in samples of sediment interstitial water

Iron is extremely unstable in the presence of oxygen. A working atmosphere containing less than 0.2% oxygen is required if iron losses are not to be significant. Iron can be determined with a single addition of reagent, either manually or by a continuous flow procedure using ferrozine. Using a continuous flow procedure with a 5 cm colorimeter cell the method is linear up to 40 μM Fe and the precision is 2%. Manganese can similarly be determined with a single reagent addition using formaldoxime. For the continuous flow procedure with a 5 cm colorimeter cell the method is linear up to 60 μM Mn and the precision is 1%; however, under these conditions a solution containing 100 μm of iron produces an interference equivalent to 4.7 μM of manganese. A two-reagent procedure was developed using EDTA to suppress the iron interference. Using a 5% EDTA solution interference from a solution containing 100 μM of iron was undetectable. (author)