Salicylate Method for Ammonia Quantification in Nitrogen Electroreduction Experiments: The Correction of Iron III Interference

Abstract

The salicylate method is one of the ammonia quantification methods that has been extensively used in literature for quantifying ammonia in the emerging field of nitrogen (electro)fixation. The presence of iron in the sample causes a strong negative interference on the salicylate method. Today, the recommended method to deal with such interferences is the experimental correction method: the iron concentration in the sample is measured using an iron quantification method, and then the corresponding amount of iron is added to the calibration samples. The limitation of this method is that when a batch of samples presents a great iron concentration variability, a different calibration curve has to be obtained for each sample. In this work, the interference of iron III on the salicylate method was experimentally quantified, and a model was proposed to capture the effect of iron III interference on the ammonia quantification result. This model can be used to correct the iron III interferences on ammonia quantification. The great advantage of this correction method is that it only requires three experimental curves in order to correct the iron III interference in any sample provided the iron III concentration is below the total peak suppression concentration.