Spectrophotometric determination of silicon in silicates by flow-injection analysis

A flow-injection spectrophotometric method has been developed for the accurate, continuous determination of silicon in silicate rocks. A rock sample solution is prepared by fusion with a 1:1 mixture of lithium carbonate and boric acid and subsequent dissolution of the cake in 1 M hydrochloric acid. The preparation technique is the same as that used for the determination of total iron, aluminium, calcium, titanium, and phosphorus in silicate rocks by flow-injection spectrophotometry. Because of the marked polymerization of silicic acid in acid solution, silicic acid is depolymerized in alkaline medium after a simple cation-exchange column filtration of the rock sample solution and then determined by a static or an FIA spectrophotometric method. The FIA system consists of two channels which carry the carrier solution and molybdate reagent, and allows the colour reaction to proceed under controlled conditions. The FIA system permits high throughput of 70 samples per hour. The procedure has been applied to a variety of standard silicate rocks of the U.S. Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Japan, and gave satisfactory agreement with the recommended values.