Versatility of thermometric titration technology can be applied to the rapid and accurate analysis of water in a wide range of substances
What Stirling describes as the unmatched versatility of Multitrator's thermometric titration technology can be applied to the rapid and accurate analysis of water in a wide range of substances.
Suspending or dissolving the substance in a suitable solvent, and then determining the dissolved water by titration can be a solution to the above problems.
For over 60 years, the Karl Fischer titrimetric technique has reigned.
The basis is a redox reaction where sulphur dioxide is oxidised to sulphuric acid by iodine in the presence of water.
The titrant must therefore contain sulphur dioxide, iodine and an organic base.
It is of limited stability, toxic and must be rigorously protected from atmospheric moisture.
Let's face it, Karl Fischer is a distinctly evil titrant.
Multitrator offers a better, thermometric solution for the titrimetric analysis of water.
The American chemists T Sadtler and EW Wilson developed a much simpler method, better suited for the busy industrial laboratory.
They found that the acid-catalysed strongly endothermic reaction of 2,2-dimethoxypropane (DMP) with water could readily be adapted to a fast, accurate thermometric titration.
DMP is indefinitely stable, is of low toxicity, and will not react with water unless acid is present.
Where the sample is neutral or basic, it may be acidified with a suitable acid such as methyl sulphonic acid.
The technique has been successfully applied to the determination of moisture in a wide variety of samples, including concentrated acids, oils and lubricants, solvents (including chlorinated solvents), foodstuffs, minerals, fine particulate solids, polymer starting materials and intermediates, amines, phenols, aldehydes, ketones, as well as reducing agents.
Samples may be suspended or dissolved in a variety of solvents or solvent mixtures.
