Spectrophotometric determination of acrylonitrile

Abstract

A spectrophotometric method for the determination of acrylonitrile based on the absorbance of visible light of a pyridine-acrylonitrile complex at 411 nm has been developed. This complex Is formed in the presence of a basic hypochlorite solution at 60-65 °C. The molar absorptivity, based on acrylonitrile concentration, Is 635.4. The precision of the method is ±3.18% of the acrylonitrile present In the 5-30 ppm range. The complex color is stable for at least 20 min after development.The usefulness underlying the chemical analysis of acrylonitrile lies in the fact that it is widely used in the 1 Present address, Dow Chemical Company, P.O. Box 520, Magnolia, Ark. 72753. synthetic rubber, fiber, and plastic industries. In the United States alone in 1976 over 1.5 billion pounds were produced (1). Sensitive and reliable analytical methods for acrylonitrile are necessary for economic and toxicological purposes. Acrylonitrile is known to be toxic when ingested, inhaled, or applied to the skin, and the U.S. Public Health Service has set the maximum allowable limit for the monomer in the air at 20 ppm (2). Recent studies by Du Pont have linked acrylonitrile to cancer in workers and steps are being taken by Du Pont to reduce exposure to workers to 2 ppm (3).

Determination of sub-parts-per-billion levels of acrylonitrile in aqueous solutions

“…Detectability. Low-level AN determinations are difficult because of airborne AN contamination deriving from its use in liquid chromatography (LC); acetonitrile contains about 250 ppm AN (11). Special precautions (discarding a forecut and injecting the AN into boiling water) are required to achieve reliable low parts-per-trillion detection of AN (Figure 9).…”

“…In the absence of salts or buffers (to reduce charge effects) sample components may be separated due to factors other than molecular weight. Distilled water may increase the apparent molecular size of ionic dissolved components due to hydration layer formation or other hydrogen bonding or ionic repulsion mechanisms (10,11). Sample-column interactions, causing fractionation, may result from charge attractions or repulsions in the absence of salts or buffers in the mobile phase.…”

Chromatographic determination of residual monomers in starch-g-polyacrylonitrile and starch-g-polyacrylate

“…A wide range of analytical methods, viz., spectrophotometric [6], polarographic [7] and titrimetric [8] are available for the individual determination of free AN, AC and AM. The vast majority of the methods used rely on gas chromatography [9] equipped with nitrogenphosphorus detectors [10].…”

Trace determination of subnanogram amounts of acrylonitrile in complex matrices by gas chromatography with a nitrogen-selective detector

“…The determination of acrylonitrile (ACN) in a variety of matrices has received attention in recent months because of its extensive industrial usage and its purported carcinogenic properties (1)(2)(3). The commonly used techniques for trace analysis of ACN depend on gas chromatographic (GC) separation followed by flame ionization detection (FID) (4).…”

“…The importance of standard reference materials for metal analysis has been recently well-recognized by scientists in many fields. The authors, in a cooperative study with NBS research groups, have performed some research for new biological reference materials, and the work includes the preparation of Japanese Tea Leaves (1) and "wet" Shark Meat samples (2). Pepperbush tree is known to accumulate Zn, Mn, Co, Ni, and Cd in the leaves (3); thus the elemental composition of pepperbush leaves is significantly different from that of other botanical reference materials such as Kale Powder (4), Orchard Leaves (5), Tomato Leaves (6), Spinach (7), and Pine Needles (8).…”