A new potentiometric determination of hydrazine in the presence of uranium(IV)

The present method describes the determination of hydrazine by making use of potentiometric titration technique. The underlying principle is back titration of uncreacted excess cerium remaining after the complete oxidation of hydrazine. Standardized ferrous ammonium sulfate was used for titration. This method was applied to real samples generated from a nuclear reprocessing plant wherein control of hydrazine is of paramount importance. The interference of U(IV), Cr(III), U(VI), nitrite, and chloride was studied and of all these ions the way to eliminate the interference of U(IV) was only attempted. The relative standard deviations (RSD) for synthetic as well as real samples were determined. The method gives RSD of less than 1% in the range of 1 mg to 20 mg of hydrazine. The error in the range 3 mg to 17 mg was found to be less than 1%.Plant operation section, Reprocessing Group.