Determination of Selenium(IV) Using o-Phenylenediamine by Differential Pulse Polarography/Interference of Metal Ions

Determination of selenium in biological and environmental samples is usually difficult due to its trace or ultra-trace quantities, pre-concentration stages, destruction of organic matrices by acid digestion and oxygen plasma combustion followed by separation from interfering metal ions such as ion exchange separation, solvent extraction or hydride generation. Selective separation of selenium is particularly important in the determination of small amounts of the element in complex materials. These are all time consuming procedures and losses of selenium are also possible. It is therefore very important to accomplish methods with minimal interference. In the electroanalytical determination of selenium, the most serious interfering elements were indicated to be copper, lead, cadmium and tin due to their surface reaction with selenium on a mercury drop electrode. In some voltammetric studies, such as anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) and cathodic ∗Corresponding author