Voltammetric Determination of Boron using Poly Xylenol Orange-Modified Pencil Graphite Electrode

ABSTRACT

This study describes a new voltammetric method for sensitive and accurate determination of boron using the poly xylenol orange-modified and oxidized pencil graphite electrode. The oxidation of tiron at +0.86 V in the boron–tiron complex formed in phosphate buffer solution at pH 8 was evaluated as a response. The parameters for voltammetric determination of boron were optimized. The modified electrode was characterized by cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The limits of detection and quantification were estimated to be 28 and 83 µg/L, respectively. The relative standard deviation value was 4.89% for 0.2 mg/L boron. The recovery results were 98.72, 100.53, and 100.14% for tap water, drinking water, and eye lotion samples, respectively. The accuracy of the method was tested using a certified reference material (UME CRM 1201: Elements in Spring Water).

KEYWORDS:

• Boron
• electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)
• energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX)
• modified electrode
• scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
• tiron
• xylenol orange
• ¹¹boron nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹¹B-NMR).

Additional information

Funding

This study was performed in the laboratory of TÜBİTAK NMI Chemistry Group, Electrochemistry Laboratory. The authors would like to thank to the scientific research project division of Balıkesir University (Contract no: 2015/130) for financial support. The authors would like to thank to İlker Ün (researcher at Organic Chemistry Laboratory of National Metrology Institute-TÜBİTAK) for the ¹¹B-NMR measurements.