Spectrophotometric determination of hydrogen cyanide in air and biological fluids

Abstract

A spectrophotometric method is proposed for the determination of hydrogen cyanide in air. Hydrogen cyanide present in air is absorbed in 0.002 M sodium hydroxide solution, which is then treated with bromine. The cyanogen bromide so formed reacts with pyridine to form glutaconic aldehyde. The latter is condensed with anthranilic acid to form a yellowish orange polymethine dye which shows a maximum absorbance at 400 nm. Beer's law is obeyed in the range 0.4–4 p.p.m. Other analytical parameters have been investigated. The method has been successfully applied to the determination of hydrogen cyanide in biological samples, e.g., cysteine and whole blood.