Rapid spectrophotometric determination of cobalt in high-speed steels based on the formation of tricarbonatocobaltate(III)

Abstract

The influence of a number of experimental parameters on the determination of cobalt in high-speed steels has been investigated, taking advantage of the property of the cobalt(III) ion of forming very selectively a stable green-coloured complex compound with carbonate. As a result, a method has been devised that has been applied to the analysis of six certified standard steel samples with cobalt contents ranging from 3 to 12%. From a statistical treatment of the results it is concluded that the average relative error of the method lies within the range ±1.37%, while its relative standard deviation is 0.67%, thereby indicating the absence of systematic errors.