Comparative study of the masking effect of various complexans in the spectrophotometric determination of uranium with arsenazo III and chlorophosphonazo III

Results are presented for the masking of 35 elements with the complexans DTPA, EGTA and TTHA in the spectrophotometric determination of uranium(VI) with Arsenazo III at pH 1.8 +/- 0.2 and with Chlorophosphonazo III at pH 1.1 +/- 0.2. The complexans EDTA and DCTA were found to be less suitable because at low pH they tended to precipitate. DTPA is shown to be especially attractive for masking other elements in the determination of uranium(VI) at low pH.