Determination of NH+ in environmental water with interfering substances using the modified nessler method

Nitrogen is an essential element in the environment. if excess nitrogen including nh4 + is present in water,however,it can result in algae blooming and eventually the destruction of the aquatic ecosystem. therefore,the determination of nh4 + in streams,lakes,and effluents of the treatment facilities has long been carried out. the nessler method is the most common spectrophotometric method to measure nh4 + in water. however,the result of the method becomes inaccurate if there are interfering substances such as cl cl -,hardness-causing compounds (e.g.,mg2+),and fe 2+ in target water samples. in this study,therefore,the traditional nessler method has been modified to eliminate the effects of interfering substances; the so-called ms was added to water samples. in addition,the polyvinyl alcohol reagent as a dispersing agent was added to water samples to increase the sensitivity and reproducibility of the method. the modified method could successfully analyze nh4 + of water samples even with the interfering substance at high concentration. © 2013 heonsang jeong et al.