Direct spectrophotometric determination of thiocyanate in serum and urine with a continuous-flow analyzer

A spectrophotometric method for the rapid measurement of thiocyanate in serum and urine without separation from interfering substances is described. Thiocyanate reacts immediately with chloramine-T in presence of iron(III) chloride catalyst to give cyanogen chloride, which reacts with a mixture of γ-picoline (4-methylpyridine) and barbituric acid to form a soluble violet—blue product, which is measured at 605 nm. Other components of physiological fluids react more slowly and do not interfere if the reaction time of the chlorinating step is kept very short. The proposed procedure is compared with a highly selective method, based on the oxidation of thiocyanate to cyanide, and good agreement was obtained for both serum and urine. The method is readily adapted to a continuous-flow procedure with a Technicon AutoAnalyzer.