An Environmentally Friendly Flow Injection-Gas Diffusion System Using Roselle ( Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) Extract as Natural Reagent for the Photometric Determination of Sulfite in Wines

Abstract

In this work, a green and simpler method for photometric determination of sulfite based on a flow injection-gas diffusion (FI-GD) system using a natural reagent extracted from roselle ( Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) was proposed. Despite the fact that the employed reaction is not selective to sulfite, its sensitivity is high, and the selectivity can be improved by coupling a GD unit to the FI system. The method involves monitoring a decrease in absorbance of the reagent solution that is used as an acceptor solution. When a standard solution or sample solution was injected into an acidic donor stream, the liberated sulfur dioxide diffuses through a gas-permeable membrane of the GD unit into the acceptor solution, causing color fading of the reagent. A linear analytical curve in the range of 5–100 mg L ⁻¹ was obtained with a detection limit of 2 mg·L ⁻¹. Relative standard deviations of 0.9%, 0.6%, and 0.6% were obtained for the determination of 30, 70, and 100 mg·L ⁻¹ SO ₃ ^2- ( n = 11). The developed method was applied to wine samples, giving results that agreed with those obtained with the Ripper titrimetric method. The proposed method offers advantages of simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and being environmentally friendly such as reduced chemical consumption and less waste generation.