A Simple and Reliable Method for Spectrophotometric Determination of Titanium Dioxide in Double Base Solid Propellants: A Comparative Study with Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry

In this research, a reliable and simple method was described for the determination of the amount of titanium dioxide (TiO2) in double base solid (DB propellants), based on a comparison with the inductively coupled plasma method. The method is based on complex formation of Ti(IV) with chromotropic acid in acidic media and monitoring the absorbance of the colored products by spectrophotometric technique at 460 nm. Under optimal conditions, the calibration graph was linear in the range of 0.10-5.0 μg mL-1 of Ti(IV) with the limit of detection of 0.05 μg mL-1. The validity of the method was evaluated by means of the data statistical analysis. For this purpose, the method was applied to the determination of titanium dioxide in DB propellants, and the results were compared based statistical tests with those obtained by the ICP- AES. The results showed that the proposed method offers an accurate and reliable approach for the determination of TiO2 in DB propellants, and can be suggested as a routine method in quality control laboratories.