ASIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY ASIAN JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY http://dx.doi.org/10.14233/ajchem.2016.19523 INTRODUCTION The determination of toxic trace metals in industrial waste samples has gained wide attention as seepage of effluents cause metal pollution of the aqueous environment [1]. Antimony is known to be a genotoxic element in vitro and in vivo. It is now recognized as a global contaminant and has aroused the global concerns recently [2]; however, the biogeochemical behaviour of antimony is still largely unknown [3]. In view of wide applications of antimony in industries and its detrimental effects, it is important to determine antimony concentrations in different aqueous systems. Thus, it is appropriate to develop an analytical method of simple approach for the determination of antimony in industrial waste samples. The principal oxidation states of antimony in its com- pounds are -3, +3 and +5. Voltammetric methods such as anodic stripping voltammetry and differential pulse polarography can identify and determine different ionic forms of an element due to the certain selectivity of the redox potentials [4]. These methods are thus more suitable for the studies and determina- tion of antimony. In stripping analysis, intermetallic compound formation on the electrode surface causes significant inter- ference during the deposition [5], therefore, we have envisaged the suitability of differential pulse polarography in present work. The observations have enabled in developing optimal conditions for the determination of antimony at low concen- tration. Voltammetric Studies and Determination of Antimony(III) RAJNI BAIS * and PARUL RATHORE Electroanalytical Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistrty, Jai Narayan Vyas University, Jodhpur-342 005, India *Corresponding author: E-mail: rajni.c31@gmail.com Received: 24 July 2015; Accepted: 9 September 2015; Published online: 30 December 2015; AJC-17696 A detailed voltammetric study of Sb(III) has resulted in optimization of analytical conditions for determination of antimony at low concentration of submicrogram level by using differential pulse polarographic method. Among different supporting electrolytes investigated for the study of Sb(III), 0.8 M glycolic acid-ammonia was found most adequate where a well-defined wave was obtained at -0.30 V for the electroreduction of Sb(III) to Sb(0). It was observed that on increasing the concentration of Sb(III) the peak current increased linearly up to a concentration of 30 ppm. Limit of determination was observed to be 0.01 μg/mL. Cu(II), Pb(II), Cd(II), As(III) and Zn(II) did not interfere. The differential pulse polarography determination of antimony(III) was evaluated for its accuracy and precision in terms of standard deviation and percentage error. The method has been successfully applied for analysis of antimony in industrial waste samples and atomic absorption spectrophotometer method was used to compare the results obtained by differential pulse polarography. Keywords: Differential pulse polarography, Antimony, Industrial waste samples. Asian Journal of Chemistry; Vol. 28, No. 4 (2016), 807-810 The lector-reduction of Sb(III) in sulfuric acid-thiocyanate solution was investigated by polarography and cyclic voltammetry by Jacobsen and Rojahn [6]. Huiliang and coworkers [7] have determined Sb(III) and Sb(V) in natural waters by flow constant current stripping analysis with gold fibre working electrode. Capodaglio et al. [8] proposed a method to determine subnanomolar levels of antimony in fresh water and seawater by cathodic stripping voltammetry. The use of differential pulse adsorptive stripping voltammetry for the determination of Sb(III) and Sb(V) using pyrogallol as a complexing agent was described by González et al. [9]. A very sensitive electrochemical procedure for the trace determination of antimony was described by Zhang et al. [10]. In recent years a lot of work has been reported by scientists all around the world on voltammetric studies for sensitive determination of antimony [11-16]. Differential pulse polarographic deter- mination of arsenic [17], cadmium [18], selenium [19] and mercury [20] on similar lines were described earlier. EXPERIMENTAL A microprocessor based pulse polarographic analyzer (Model CL-362) in combination with a drop-timer assembly, all of Elico Limited, Hyderabad, India, was used for volta- mmetric measurements. A dropping mercury electrode was used as the working electrode. The instrumental settings for the differential pulse polarography were as follows: pulse