Spectrophotometric determination of carbon tetrachloride via ultrasonic oxidation of iodide accelerated by dissolved carbon tetrachloride

Ultrasonic oxidation of iodide was investigated in the presence of carbon tetrachloride (CCl₄). The ultrasonic oxidation of potassium iodide led to formation of iodine and then I₃⁻ in the presence of excess iodide, and the generated I₃⁻ shows strong UV absorption with a molar absorptivity of 2.31 × 10⁴ L mol⁻¹ cm⁻¹ at the maximum absorption wavelength of 351 nm. The ultrasonic oxidation of iodide was found to be significantly promoted by a small addition of CCl₄, and it was further found that the generation rate was increased with the amount of CCl₄ added. This can be used to analyze the level of CCl₄ dissolved in aqueous solutions. Under optimum conditions, the concentration of generated iodine (or its absorption at 351 nm) was found to correlated linearly with the concentration of CCl₄ in the range of 0.2-50 mg L⁻¹ (detection limit = 0.09 mg L⁻¹, R² = 0.999). As an alternative indirect spectrophotometric method of CCl₄ determination, the proposed method was successfully applied to determine the concentrations of CCl₄ in several practical samples, showing merits of being sensitive and simple of operation.