The topic of my bacehelor’s thesis is the development of a method for the determination of the concentration of hydrogen peroxide in the gas phase. This method is based on the reaction between molecules of hydrogen peroxide and iodide ion which takes place if gaseous hydrogen peroxide is bubbled into a solution of potassium iodide. The product of that reaction is triiodide ion, a species which absorbs electromagnetic waves in the region of ultraviolet and visible light. Therefore, for the method to work, linear dependence between the measured absorbance of triiodide ion and the concentration of gaseous hydrogen peroxide has to be proven.
The development of a method began with the construction of a setup which enables the creation of a gas sample with constant concentration of gaseous hydrogen peroxide and the bubbling of that sample into the potassium iodide solution. The effect of various experimental variables, such as the duration of bubbling and the flow of the carrier gas, was analyzed and optimal conditions for making the experiment were chosen. The exact amount of the formed triiodide ion was determined by measuring the absorbance of standard triiodide solutions and constructing the calibration curves. My experimental results proved the linear dependence and consequently showed that the method is suitable for the determination of hydrogen peroxide in gas samples. In the final part of my laboratory work, alternative reagents which also react with hydrogen peroxide were tested in order to obtain higher selectivity, and the effect of potential interferences was examined.
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