The determination of chlorine in rocks and minerals by pyrohydrolytic method

In this paper a porcedute of pyrohydrolysis spectrophotometric determination has been established for chlorine in rocks and minerals. The selection of accelerator and its required quantity, the time and temperature of sample decomposition and the influence of interferring elements and other factors are also discussed in detail. Because samples are usually fused with alkalis, higher blank is an insurmountable problem. However, with our procedure, the above-mentioned drawback can be effectively overcome, and the determination of trace chlorine either in large or in minor quantities of samples also is rather ideal. The determined results indicate that the relative standard deviations are 8.7% in the former and 4.5% in the latter case. This procedure is simple, rapid and well reproduceable. The detection limit of the method is 10 ppm. The results obtained by our procedure are in good agreement with the proposed values from two reference samples in China (DZΣ-1 and DZΣ-2) and one international geochemical reference sample (RGM-1). This method has proved itself to be reliable.