Catalytic spectrophotometric determination of iodine in coal by pyrohydrolysis decomposition

A method for the determination of iodine in coal using pyrohydrolysis for sample decomposition was proposed. A pyrohydrolysis apparatus system was constructed, and the procedure was designed to burn and hydrolyse coal steadily and completely. The parameters of pyrohydrolysis were optimized through the orthogonal experimental design. Iodine in the absorption solution was evaluated by the catalytic spectrophotometric method, and the absorbance at 420 nm was measured by a double-beam UV-visible spectrophotometer. The limit of detection and quantification of the proposed method were 0.09 μg g−1 and 0.29 μg g−1, respectively. After analysing some Chinese soil reference materials (SRMs), a reasonable agreement was found between the measured values and the certified values. The accuracy of this approach was confirmed by the analysis of eight coals spiked with SRMs with an indexed recovery from 94.97 to 109.56%, whose mean value was 102.58%. Six repeated tests were conducted for eight coal samples, including high sulfur coal and high fluorine coal. A good repeatability was obtained with a relative standard deviation value from 2.88 to 9.52%, averaging 5.87%. With such benefits as simplicity, precision, accuracy and economy, this approach can meet the requirements of the limits of detection and quantification for analysing iodine in coal, and hence it is highly suitable for routine analysis.