Gas-liquid chromatographic method for the determination of peracids in the presence of a large excess of hydrogen peroxide

Abstract

The oxidation of organic sulphides is very fast with peracids and very slow with hydrogen peroxide. Thus, addition of an excess of methyl p-tolyl sulphide to a mixture of an organic peracid and hydrogen peroxide results in the formation of methyl p-tolyl sulphoxide equimolar with the peracid. The gas-chromatographic determination of the residual sulphide, or of the produced sulphoxide, affords a quantitative evaluation of the peracid present in the mixture. The method has been applied to the determination of m-chloroperbenzoic acid and peracetic and perpropionic acids.