1. Ion chromatographic determination of acidity.
- Author
-
De Borba BM, Kinchin CM, Sherman D, Cook TK, Dasgupta PK, Srinivasan K, and Pohl CA
- Subjects
- Carboxylic Acids analysis, Cations, Monovalent analysis, Kinetics, Protons, Chromatography, Ion Exchange methods, Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
- Abstract
The practice of determining acid concentrations by titrations has remained unchanged for more than a century. We introduce a new approach to the determination of acid concentrations based on cation exchange chromatography. We demonstrate the ability of sulfonated styrene-divinylbenzene based stationary phases to separate the hydrogen ion from other monovalent cations. The eluent is a dilute solution of a neutral salt, sometimes containing a small concentration of the corresponding acid, e.g., sodium ethanesulfonate, pH adjusted with ethanesulfonic acid. The high equivalent conductance (approximately 350 S.cm2/equiv) of H+ and relatively low eluent concentration allows sensitive conductometric detection of H+, down to the 50 microM level under favorable conditions. The conductometric response to H+ can be linear over a wide range of H+ concentrations, from sub-millimolar to several molar concentrations. The system allows the rapid quantitation of strong acids; weak acids can also be determined depending on pKa and injected concentration. The determinations of several strong and weak acids are presented along with factors that govern their chromatographic analysis.
- Published
- 2000
- Full Text
- View/download PDF