A new modified chromotropic acid method for qualitative detection of methanol at trace levels in nonalcoholic media

In this paper, a green and novel modified method was suggested for qualitative detection of methanol in solutions with no ethanol. There are many sophisticated methods for determination of methanol. But, all of these complicated methods require advanced instruments that are very expensive and troublous. Unlike methanol, many different chemical methods are established for direct determination of formaldehyde. In this study, a new modified micro qualitative method with clean standards, based on chromotropic acid method, has been suggested for detection of methanol content in nonalcoholic solutions. The proposed method has no need to special laboratory equipment or professional knowledge and it can detect trace amounts of methanol easily at very short time. Briefly, methanol content of solutions was oxidized to formaldehyde and then, the chromotropic acid method was applied for detection of produced formaldehyde as a sensitive and accurate method. To the best of our knowledge, there isn’t any report about qualitative method based on it.

Keywords:

Methanol , Chromotropic acid , Qualitative detection , colorimetric method