Rapid measurement of free cyanide in liquor by ion chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection

This study investigated the measurement of free cyanide in liquor by ion chromatography coupled with pulsed amperometric detection (IC–PAD). Eluent concentration, interferent evaluation and method performance were discussed. Results show that free cyanide in liquor can be rapidly determined by the optimised IC–PAD method. A sample requires only 1:100 dilution and simple filtration before being subjected to IC–PAD. The linear range is 1–5000 μg/L with an R value of 0.9998. The detection limit is 1 μg/L for a 25 μL injection loop. The overall relative standard deviation (RSD) of the method is less than 5%, and the recovery range is from 98.1% to 105.0%. This study has been proven significant and may have potential applications in liquors analysis.