Application of Sparging to the Automated Ion Selective Electrode Determination of Kjeldahl Nitrogen
Abstract An automated method has been developed for the determination of total Kjeldahl nitrogen. Sample digests are mixed with a NaOH solution and allowed to make contact with air flowing at 1000 mL/min. The mixture enters the inlet of a heating bath maintained at 75°C. On exit, ammonia gas separates from a sparging vessel and is trapped as ammonium sulfate in a dilute H2SO4 solution. An aliquot of the acid solution is resampled and made alkaline to generate ammonia, which is measured by an ammonia sensing probe. A comparison of this procedure with AOAC method 7.025 shows that the procedure is accurate and that there is no statistically significant difference between them. This procedure introduces a new approach to eliminate the interfering species present in sample digests after Kjeldahl digestion for automated ion selective electrode measurements of ammonia. Thirty samples/h can be analyzed by this method.