Metrohm has announced that its 859 Titrotherm instrument can be used by process laboratories to determine sodium chloride content in foodstuffs.
The Salt Titrotherm offers a complete working package, for specific, rapid, robust and economical analysis of sodium.
The content of sodium chloride in foodstuffs has been historically determined by titration using a silver electrode.
The analysis is a so-called precipitation titration with potentiometric detection.
The amount of sodium is typically calculated by assuming a 1:1 molar ratio of chloride ions to sodium ions in the food.
This is not necessarily the case when common sodium-containing food ingredients - such as sodium benzoate and monosodium glutamate - or chloride-containing ingredients - such as potassium chloride - are present in the food matrix, as well as sodium ions that may be present in the food itself.
Metrohm has announced a method of direct thermometric titration of sodium in foodstuffs, which is available at a discounted introductory price.
The parameters of each Titrotherm instrument have been optimised to ensure fast, accurate and reproducible results.
All the keys are locked out to stop any unwanted changes to parameters and results.
These instruments are said to be ideal for process laboratories, and also when this type of analysis is performed by an unskilled operator, for example.
Thermometric titration has been shown to be robust and accurate.
Metrohm said the results achieved with the 859 Titrotherm demonstrate that a titration using simple and rapid sample preparation will allow the user to analyse sodium directly in a food sample.
