Potentiometric determination of free acidity in presence of hydrolysable ions and a sequential determination of hydrazine

A simple potentiometric method for the determination of free acidity in presence of hydrolysable ions and sequential determination of hydrazine is developed and described. Both free acid and hydrazine are estimated from the same aliquot. In this method, free acid is titrated with standard sodium carbonate solution after the metal ions in solutions are masked with EDTA. Once the end point for the free acid is determined at pH 3.0, an aliquot of formaldehyde is added to liberate the acid equivalent to hydrazine which is then titrated with the same standard sodium carbonate solution using an automatic titration system. The described method is simple, accurate and reproducible. This method is especially applicable to all ranges of nitric acid and heavy metal ion concentration relevant to Purex process used for nuclear fuel reprocessing. The overall recovery of nitric acid is 98.9% with 1.2% relative standard deviation. Hydrazine content has also been determined in the same aliquot with a recovery of nitric acid is 99% with 2% relative standard deviation. The major advantage of the method is that generation of corrosive analytical wastes containing oxalate or sulphate is avoided. Valuable metals like uranium and plutonium can easily be recovered from analytical waste before final disposal.