Abstract
An automated urease-chromous colorimetric method (AUCM) has been developed for determining nitrogen in fertilizers. The method is applicable to fertilizer samples that contain only ammoniacal, nitrate, and urea nitrogen. The concept of this method, combining nitrate reduction and enzymatic urea hydrolysis to produce a single method for total nitrogen, is new. The AUCM is an almost totally automated method with only an acidic dissolution step as the manual sample preparation. The urea is hydrolyzed to ammonia and carbon dioxide with urease, and the nitrate is reduced to ammonia with chromous ion within the continuous flow analytical system. The final step, also within the analytical system, is the spectrophotometric measurement of the ammonia, employing the ammonia-salicylate-hypochlorite chemistry. The sampling rate is 30 samples/hr. The method is not applicable to fertilizer samples containing refractory organic nitrogen forms, water-insoluble nitrogen, or significant levels of biuret. The average per cent nitrogen recovery by the AUCM for ammonium nitrate-diammonium phosphate bulk-blended fertilizer samples was 99.7, suspensions and liquids 99.7, urea fertilizers 97.8, and urea-diammonium phosphate bulk blends 98. The relative standard deviation for the analytical system was 0.40%, and for the method, 0.70%. The sample preparation is short and simple. This method offers many advantages as a screening method for fertilizer industry and control laboratories.