A simple and sensitive method for determination of carbon disulphide in environmental and biological samples

Abstract

An analytical method using potassium dichromate and diphenylcarbazide for determination of carbon disulphide has been proposed. In this method carbon disulphide reduces the Cr(VI) to Cr(III) and the unreduced Cr(VI) forms a pink-purple complex with diphenylcarbazide in acidic medium, which is measured spectrophotometrically at 530 nm. Beer’s law is obeyed over a concentration range of 0.01 to 0.1 µg mL⁻¹. Molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity were found to be 5.5 × 10⁵ L mol⁻¹ cm⁻¹ and 0.00013 µg cm⁻² respectively. The optimum reaction conditions and other analytical parameters were evaluated. The effect of interfering ions on the determination of CS₂ was studied. The method has been successfully applied for the determination of CS₂ in grain samples, fungicides (ziram, thiram) and various environmental and biological samples.