Ion Chromatographic Analysis of Sulfur Species (S2−, SO32−, and S2O32−) in Natural Geothermal Water Samples
Abstract
A practical ion chromatography (IC) method has been developed for the analysis of sulfur species (S2−, SO32−, and S2O32−) contained in natural geothermal water samples. All species were separated by the combination of 6.0 mM dipotassium hydrogen phosphate as the mobile phase and TSKgel IC-Anion-PW column as the stationary phase at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The UV detection instrument was set at 210 nm to analyze the standard and all the real samples. The chromatograms show the sulfur species were completely analyzed in less than 10 min. The detection limits at S/N=3 were 0.045, 0.386, and 0.049 µM for S2−, SO32−, and S2O32−, respectively, whereas the repeatability values were below 2.34%, 4.21%, and 3.74% for retention time, peak height, and peak area, respectively. The practical method was successfully applied to the determination of sulfur species concentration in natural geothermal waters obtained from Jailolo, North Maluku Province, Indonesia. To evaluate the performance of method, the all samples were then collected in two main sample points: close to- and a little far from- the beach.
Keywords: ion chromatography, anions, sulfur species, geothermal water, Jailolo
