A new method for the direct precipitation of aluminium in the presence of iron

It is shown that aluminium can be precipitated as benzoate from solutions containing up to 1 gram of iron in the presence of thioglycollic acid, which reduces the iron and forms a soluble complex with ferrous iron. Very large amounts of such salts as ammonium chloride, sulphate and perchlorate, and sodium chloride do not interfere, nor do other divalent metals. Molybdates and tungstates are without effect, but chromium, vanadium and titanium interfere. This limits the direct application of the method in metallurgical analysis, but in many cases this speedy and complete separation will have many uses.