Pheumatoamperometric determination of cyanide, sulfide and their mixtures

A rapid pneumatoamperometric method for quantifying cyanide in the presence or absence of sulfide is described. The gaseous mixture of hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulfide is separated by inserting a short chromatographic column packed with silica gel between the reaction vessel used to generate the volatile acids and the porous gold electrode that the detects them. The detection limit is ca. 5 ng cyanide in 2 ml of solution regardless of sulfide content. The detection limit for sulfide is ca. 1.0 ng in 2 ml of solution when cyanide is present and ca. 0.7 ng in absence of cyanide. Both sulfite and nitrite interfere.