Abstract

Jin Hoong Leong¹, Keat Khim Ong²*, Wan Yunus Wan Md Zin³, Fitrianto Anwar⁴, Ummul Fahri Abdul Rauf², Chin Chuang Teoh⁵, Hussin Abdul Ghapor³ and Mohd Junaedy Osman²

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/ojc/320512

Inorganic arsenic contamination has caused a remarkable impact on the contamination of soil and groundwater in many counties. Consequently, determination of inorganic arsenic on site is very crucial especially arsenic (III) which is more toxic than arsenic (V). Thus, a more rapid, simple and ecofriendly approach was developed in this study to determine arsenic (III) by incorporation of image processing technique into colorimetric method. The effects of various factors were evaluated by a 2⁴ full factorial design with a blocking factor. The mass ratio of sulfamic acid to zinc powder was the most significant factor affected red, green and blue (RGB) color values and followed by reaction period. The optimum conditions for the detection were found to be using 1 g of sulfamic acid and 0.5 g of zinc powder at 5 minutes. This work also demonstrates that the developed method is able to detect arsenic (III) rapidly and easily.

Arsenic (III); Colorimetric; Factorial design analysis; Image Processing; Optimisation

[ View HTML Full Text]