engleski

Electrochemical Reduction of o-Nitrophenol as a Tool for the Rough Characterization of Organic Matter in Seawater Samples

Phase sensitive alternating current (a.c.) voltammetry with o-nitrophenol (ONP) as a probe is used as a simple nondestructive method for a rough characterization of organic substances in natural seawater samples. This is based on the measurement of the effects of adsorbed organic substances on the peak height and the potential of the ONP reduction peak. In this work is presented further improvement of the method which is achieved by introducing the measurement of the prepeak of ONP reduction obtained upon scan reversal. The height of the prepeak is extremely sensitive upon the type of organic matter adsorbed on the mercury electrode at the pH of natural seawater. The ONP prepeak increases in the presence of adsorbed layers of negatively charged organic substances, such as humic and fulvic acids and proteins. In the presence of adsorbed polysaccharides of dextran type there is no increase of the ONP prepeak height or even a small decrease of the prepeak is observed with the increasing concentration of the polysaccharides. The application of the method is demonstrated on different seawater samples from the north Adriatic sea.

Organic matter in seawater; o-Nitrophenol reduction

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