You can't dissolve sulfur in such solvents. Its insoluble in them. The only solvent that I know of in which it is reasonably soluble is carbon disulfide

Sulfur cannot be "solvated" as sulfate ions. That is an oxidation process. Perhaps strong nitric acid will slowly oxidise sulfur to sulfate,

Thanks Prof. Farrugia,

We want to separate elemental Sulfur from by-product (that contains Jarosite precipitates and ZnS)  by Flotation process. Any instrument is not available in our company to analyze whether Sulfur has been separated or not!

I've think that I succeed to solve Sulfur in inorganic solvent, it transform to SO4 ions and it can be determined GRAVIMETRICALLY by precipitation as barium sulphate.

If you have any idea about it, pleas help me.

Thanks Prof.  Steudel,

I don't have any idea about strong nucleophiles and generation soluble polysulfide ions. I can try cyanide sodium to change insoluble sulfur to soluble anions.

It is important for me to measure carefully sulfur from raw materials (by-product) and tailing of process (Flotation).

I've dissolve the specified content of solid materials in dilute HCl and after that filtration was done. The amount of insoluble was weighed and I thought it is correspond to sulfur content. Although I am not sure that is correct or not!!

Therefore, I want to find a better and more accurate way to determine sulfur.

You can try to completely dissolve your sample by refluxing it in aqua regia (conc. HCl/HNO3 3/1, v/v) or in hydrothermal conditions with the same reagent. This should oxidize and solubilize everything, including sulfur to sulfate (check the procedure with a sample of pure sulfur). In the solution sulfate ions can then be determined by precipitation as barium sulfate. On the other hand, the possible presence of barium ions in your sample may create problems.

Hello

There are two articles which I think may be useful for you.

1.Protocol for Quantitative Detection of Elemental Sulfur and Polysulfide Zero-Valent Sulfur Distribution in Natural Aquatic Samples, by Alexey Kamyshny Jr, Clemens G. Borkenstein andTimothy G. Ferdelman

2.Voltammetric determination of elemental sulfur in pore waters by FEIYUE WANG TESSIER A. BUFFLE J

I see now that Jarusite contains sufate ions. Thus, my previous answer is not adequate to solve your problem.

I think that elementary sulfur could be dissolved in a concentrated solution of ammoniumsulfide - but I have not tried it.

Thanks a lot Pandolfo, Moshtagh, Heydorn and Breternitz.

Prof. Breternitz., I didn't find article entitled "On the dissolution of non-metallic solid elements (sulfur, selenium, tellurium and phosphorus) in ionic liquids" It is not online! If you have this article please send me to read it.

Prof. Heydorn, I think that ammoniumsulfide  is a non-polar solvent that solves the sulfur as anion ions (S2-). I want to oxidize the sulfur to sulfate form. I want to measure correctly  Sulfur, so I am not sure that all of sulfur dissolve in the ammonium sulfide.

Thanks a lot Joachim. I will certainly try to test your approach.

Have a good day!

First you should determine the species of sulfur in your sample - if that is sulphate and you have Ca, Ba? Sr or Pb in your sample, the sulphates will not be dissolved.

Similarly, if you have sulphides in your sample, depending on the metal, only oxidative digestion can be used, because simple acids cannot dissolve the sulphides of the  cationic class II (qual. anal.). 

If you don't have sophisticated equipment mentioned before, I would go, for lack of a better option, for toluene and such like. Mind you, there will be some inaccuracies, probably, associated with the fact that toluene still dissolves some other stuff to a small degree. 

Please use Bromine water, Conc. HNO3, Conc. Hcl, heat, boil, NaCl, at the end treat with BaCl2, filter out ppt. of Barium Sulfate

Hi, I came across a sample of sulfur powder but it does not dissolve in CS2. What is the possible reason?