Authors : Jin Hoong Leong, Keat Khim Ong, Wan Yunus Wan Md Zin, Fitrianto Anwar, Chin Chuang Teoh, Siti Hasnawati Jamal and Mohd Junaedy Osman
Abstract: Arsenic contamination in the environment has become the worldwide problem due to its harmful effect to the environment. The main species of arsenic found in natural waters are arsenic (III) and arsenic (V). However, arsenic is normally detected as arsenic (III) or arsenic (V), thus, detection of both species in water samples is crucial. Although, colorimetric method is widely used for detection of arsenic on sites but the interpretation of the results is operator dependent. Hence, the main objective of this study is to develop a mathematical model to determine total inorganic arsenic quantitatively where the accuracy and precision of the colorimetric method is enhanced by image processing technique. The developed mathematical model relates total inorganic arsenic concentrations with Red, Green and Blue (RGB) color values and it can be expressed as: total inorganic arsenic = 405-0.133 Red-1.88 Green-0.559 Blue. The adequacy of the model was proved statistically and it can determine total inorganic arsenic with a linear range of 0-300 μg/L and a detection limit of 2.08 μg/L was determined which was lower than previous developed visual method. In addition, less toxic color generating reagent was applied in this study compared to Gutzeit method.
Jin Hoong Leong, Keat Khim Ong, Wan Yunus Wan Md Zin, Fitrianto Anwar, Chin Chuang Teoh, Siti Hasnawati Jamal and Mohd Junaedy Osman, 2019. Rapid Quantitative Determination of Total Inorganic Arsenic. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 14: 3522-3527.