Determination of dissolved organic nitrogen in seawater using Kjeldahl digestion after inorganic nitrogen removal

Type Article
Date 1997
Language English
Author(s) Doval Md, Fraga F, Perez Ff
Source Oceanolica Acta (0399-1784) (Gauthier-Villars), 1997 , Vol. 20 , N. 5 , P. 713-720
WOS© Times Cited 16
Abstract An update of the Kjeldahl method is presented for the direct determination of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) in seawater. Dissolved inorganic nitrogen is previously removed: ammonium as NH3 with NaOH at pH 9.4; and, subsequently, nitrate and nitrite as nitric oxide with FeSO4 in acid medium. The sample is then mineralized to ammonium, which is measured with a Technicon autoanalyzer by the indophenol blue method. The range of recovery for tested standard compounds is similar to those obtained by high temperature oxidation (HTO) techniques. Direct determination of DON by the method described in this work marks an improvement in precision, in comparison with other methods; the standard deviation obtained for samples of seawater is +/-0.2 mu mol.l(-1). The precision of DON measurements is not dependent on dissolved inorganic nitrogen analysis. For several stations in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, DON values ranged between 3 and 10 mu mol.l(-1).
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Doval Md, Fraga F, Perez Ff (1997). Determination of dissolved organic nitrogen in seawater using Kjeldahl digestion after inorganic nitrogen removal. Oceanolica Acta, 20(5), 713-720. Open Access version : https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00093/20429/