Determination of Sulfur in Rubber Compounds. I. Precipitation of Barium Sulfate in the Presence of Picric Acid

THERE is probably no single operation in analytical chemistry that has received more attention from investigators than that of precipitation of barium sulfate by means of a soluble barium salt for the determination of sulfate or of barium. The literature on this subject is voluminous and the conclusions reached by different investigators as to the proper procedure to employ in order to obtain a precipitate which will be filterable and reasonably pure are highly contradictory. The procedure which seems to be in most general use at present for the determination of sulfate is that of adding the barium chloride solution to the hot sulfate solution very slowly, stirring vigorously meanwhile, then allowing the whole to digest at an elevated temperature for several hours before filtering. The diversity of opinion as to the proper procedure arises, the author believes, from the fact that the barium sulfate precipitate is exceedingly sensitive to its environment and that a very slight change in the amount or kind of impurities present in the solutions during precipitation has a profound effect upon the crystal size and shape of the precipitated particles as well as upon their purity. Kolthoff and Vogelenzang (2) have stated that it is impossible to prescribe a general procedure for the accurate precipitation of sulfate in arbitrary mixtures. In other words, a precipitation procedure which gives satisfactory results in the determination of sulfur in copper ores, for instance, may not yield a satisfactory precipitate when applied to the determination of total sulfur in hard rubber dust, and a study of each type of determination, with due consideration for the amount and kind of impurities present, must be made in order to find the conditions necessary to obtain a precipitate which is pure and easily filterable.