A Novel Flow-Injection System for Simultaneous Determination of Nitrate and Nitrite Based on the Use of a Zinc Reductor and a Bulk Acoustic Wave Impedance Detector

Abstract

A novel flow-injection system has been developed for the simultaneous determination of nitrate and nitrite present in water, foodstuffs, and human saliva. The system is based on the use of a zinc-filled reduction column and a bulk acoustic wave impedance sensor (BAWIS) as detector. With water as carrier stream, both nitrate and nitrite are converted on-line to ammonia, whereas with sulfamic acid, only nitrate is converted to ammonia. The ammonia formed diffuses across a PTFE membrane and is trapped in an acid stream causing a change in the solution conductance, which is monitored by a BAWIS detector. At a throughput of about 60 h−1, the proposed system exhibited a linear response to the concentration of nitrate and nitrite from 2.5 μM to 1.00 mM, with detection limits of 1.7 and 1.8 μM, respectively, and the relative standard deviation of the peak heights (n= 6) ranged between 0.83 and 1.75% for the entire working range. In analysis of real samples, the simultaneous determination of nitrate and nitrite was achieved by the proposed method with a simple change of the carrier stream between water and sulfamic acid, and the results agreed well with those of conventional colorimetry.