Abstract
MICRO-DIFFUSION analysis represents a real advance in modern analytical technique. It seems strange, in fact, that the underlying principle of allowing the gaseous product of a reaction to diffuse, in a closed chamber, into a suitable absorbent or reactant should not have been used more extensively in analytical procedures at a much earlier date. Absorption of gases into appropriate reactants by distillation and aeration methods is, of course, the basis of many Well-known, and important, chemical and biochemical methods of analysis, but the methods are usually tedious and extravagant in apparatus and material. Conway‘s technique involves the use of a simple and inexpensive glass apparatus (termed the ‘Unit') consisting of an inner and outer chamber. The gaseous product of a reaction (for example, ammonia, volatile amines, carbon dioxide, acetaldehyde) passes from one chamber, where the gas exerts a certain tension, into an absorbent in the second chamber, where the tension approaches zero. Analyses are made of the contents of the second chamber, and the accuracy is limited only by the accuracy of delivering and titrating fluid volumes of the order of 1 ml. Conway claims that the method appears to be the "simplest possible consistent with the maximum attainable accuracy in the handling of micro-volumes". The technique has been adopted for analyses of ammonia, amides and amines, adenosine and adenosine derivatives, halogens, alcohol, acetone, lactic acid and glucose, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. It may be used also in the estimations of enzyme activities.
Microdiffusion Analysis and Volumetric Error
By Prof. Edward J. Conway. Revised edition. Pp. xix + 357. (London: Crosby Loekwood and Son, Ltd., 1947.) 21s. net.
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Microdiffusion Analysis and Volumetric Error. Nature 161, 583 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161583a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161583a0