Quantitative determination of sodium perborate and sodium percarbonate in detergent powders by infrared spectrometry

Sodium perborate ( SPB ) and sodium percarbonate ( SPC ) are solid compounds which act as sources of H 2 O 2 in solution for stain bleaching, being considered as oxidizing agents in washing powder. This research deals with the quantitative determination of SPB and SPC by an analytical procedure based on attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectrometry, utilizing partial least squares for data processing in the 1600-800 cm −1 spectral region. The statistical parameters such as R 2 , standard error of prediction and relative standard deviation have been evaluated, while number of factors, number of scans and resolution were optimized. The standard deviation of method was 0.006 and 0.010 for SPC and SPB, respectively.