Determination of chlorine and bromine in automotive shredder residues by oxygen bomb and ion chromatography

Abstract

An analytical procedure, oxygen bomb combustion-ion chromatography (IC), has been developed for the determination of total chlorine in Automotive Shredder Residues (ASR). Samples of these residues are fired under elevated oxygen pressure (30 atm) and the combustion products are transferred into a Na2 CO3/NaHCO3 absorbent solution containing 1% of H2 O2; the chlorine contents are then evaluated by ion chromatography. The use of the non-suppressed IC determination with a conductivity detector provides a rapid, sensitive and selective method for chlorine determination in ASR, allowing determinations of this heteroatom at levels below 1% in the presence of bromine and sulfur. Moreover, the proposed method allows the simultaneous determination of chlorine, bromine and sulfur which are potential environmental hazards.