Optimization of Curcumin Method and Usage of Natural Curcumin in Determination of Boron in Steel

Boron containing alloy steels are mainly used in constructional, automotive and many other applications. The presence of even trace amounts of boron affects greatly on the properties of steel such as hardness and machinability. Therefore, it is important to determine it accurately and precisely in the manufacture of these alloys. Due to the drawbacks of common advanced techniques such as Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS), Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), the universally accepted method for determination of boron in steel is the spectrophotometric method using curcumin as an auxiliary agent. Although curcumin is the most sensitive spectrophotometric reagent for the above analysis, synthetic curcumin is relatively expensive and it tends to degrade rapidly once it is exposed to air. Furthermore this method is time consuming. Therefore, this study was carried out in order to improve and optimize the available spectroscopic method and to investigate the possibility of using natural curcumin extracted from turmeric in the above analysis. The results of the study implied that natural curcumin extracted and purified from turmeric can be used as accurately and precisely as synthetic curcumin in the analysis of boron in steel. A boron-steel alloy sample found to be containing 0.26±0.01 percent of boron with synthetic curcumin gave a concentration of 0.25±0.00 percent of boron with natural curcumin, indicating no significant difference in the determination. A steel sample found to be containing 0.27±0.01 percent of boron with filter paper ashing step gave a concentration of 0.26±0.01 percent of boron without filter paper ashing step indicating no significant difference. Altering the refluxing step of current procedure significantly changes the concentration of boron indicating that the refluxing step cannot be optimized further.