Repository logo
 
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Rapid spectrophotometric determination of nitrates and nitrites in marine aqueous culture media

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Advisor(s)

Abstract(s)

The spectrophotometric determination of nitrate in sea water broths for cultivation of, say, microalgae is complicated by the frequent presence of nitrite. Two methods - sulphamic/perchloric acid method (also known as Cawse method) and sulphamic acid method - both claimed to be able to eliminate nitrite interference, were tested using a set of standards, but statistical treatment of the results proved their limitations in nitrate quantification. An improved method, based on former published methods for quantification of nitrite and coupled determination of nitrate and nitrite, was designed and tested. This improved method was compared with the reference method (based on use of a cadmium column) using several standards and biological samples of two culture media for microalgae, in different phases of their growth curve. The results thus obtained have demonstrated that there is no statistically significant difference between them at the 5% level. The precision of the method was tested by repeating determinations with three sets of standard mixtures containing nitrate and nitrite. The method proposed has advantages over conventional methods in reduced time of analysis, as well as high precision and accuracy, so it may be a good alternative for determination of nitrite and nitrate in marine aqueous media.

Description

Keywords

Enriched sea water microalgae broth Nitrate quantification Nitrite quantification Spectrophotometry

Citation

CARVALHO, A. P.; MEIRELES, L. A.; MALCATA, F.X. - Rapid spectrophotometric determination of nitrates and nitrites in marine aqueous culture media. Analusis. ISSN 0365-4877. Vol. 26 (1998), p. 347-351

Research Projects

Organizational Units

Journal Issue

Publisher

EDP Sciences, Wiley-VCH

CC License

Altmetrics