FLOW-INJECTION ANALYSIS OF HIGH CHLORIDE LEVELS IN ELECTROPLATING BATHS USING ONLINE DIALYSIS AND POTENTIOMETRIC DETECTION

A method for the flow injection analysis (FIA) of high concentrations of chloride in electroplating baths using potentiometric detection is proposed. The system includes a unit of dialysis to promote dilution of samples and a tubular electrode with an homogeneous crystalline membrane as detector. The system was optimized in order to analyse samples within a broad range of concentrations and at high levels of chloride, thereby making pretreatment of the samples unnecessary. It results in a simple manifold applicable over the 4.0 x 10(-2) and 3.0 mol L(-1) range with a throughput of about 30 samples/h. Seven different plating bath samples were analysed by the proposed method and the quality of the results compared with those obtained by the conventional procedure. Satisfactory agreement was observed.