PH-drift method

The terms batch equilibration [653], pH drift method [654], addition method [552], solid addition method [655], powder addition method (cited in [656] after [654]), potentiometric titration [234] ( sic —in the present book, the term potentiometric titration is reserved for a different method, described in Section 2.5), and salt addition [573] ( sic —in the present book, the term salt addition is reserved for a different method, described later in this section) refer to the same method, which is now described. A series of solutions of different pHs is prepared and their pHs are recorded. Then, the powder is added and the final pH is recorded. The addition of a solid induces a shift in the pH in the direction of the PZC. The pH at which the addition of powder does not induce a pH shift is taken to be the PZC. Alternatively, the PZC is determined as the plateau in the pHfln, (pH ,.,., .j) curve. The method assumes that the powder is absolutely pure (free of acid, base, or any other surface-active substance), which is seldom the case. Even with very pure powders, the above method is not recommended for materials that have a PZC at a nearly neutral pH. Namely, the method requires accurate values of the initial pH, which is the pH of an unbuffered solution. The display of a pH meter in unbuffered solutions in the nearly neutral pH range is very unstable, and the readings are not particularly reliable. The problem with pH measurements of solutions is less significant at strongly acidic or strongly basic pHs (see Section 1.10.3). The above method (under different names) became quite popular, and the results are referred to as pH in the Method columns in the tables in Chapter 3. The experimental conditions in the above method (solid-to-liquid ratio, time of equilibration, and nature and concentration of electrolyte) can vary, but little attention has been paid to the possible effects of the experimental conditions on the apparent PZC. The plateau in the pH, , (pH, ,, ) curve for apatite shifted by 2 pH units as the solid-to-liquid ratio increased from 1 500 to 1 100 [653]. Thus, the apparent PZC is a function of the solid-to-liquid ratio. 

In the mass titration method, the PZC is determined as the natnral pH of a concentrated dispersion. A detailed description of the experimental procedure can be found in [667], Mass titration become popular in the late 1980s [668,669], but the same method was already known in the 1960s as the pH drift method [183], Usually, a series of natural pH values of dispersions with increasing solid loads is reported, but only the natural pH of the most concentrated dispersion is actually used. The only role of the data points obtained at lower solid loads is to confirm that a plateau was reached in pH as a function of solid load that is, a further increase in the solid load is unlikely to bring about a change in pH. The mass titration method is based on the assumption that the solid does not contain acid, base, or other surface-active impurities. This is seldom the case, thus mass titration often produces erroneous PZCs. In this respect mass titration is similar to the potentiometric titration without correction illustrated in Figure 2.7, only the solid-to-liquid ratio is different. The experimental conditions in mass titration (solid-to-liquid ratio, time of equilibration, nature and concentration of electrolyte, and initial pH) can vary, but little attention has been paid to the possible effects of experimental conditions on the apparent PZC. The effect of an acid or base associated with solid particles on the course of mass titration was studied in [670], To this end, a series of artificially contaminated samples was prepared by the addition of an acid or base to a commercial powder. The apparent PZC of silicon nitride obtained in [671] by mass titration varied from 4.2 (extrapolated to zero time of equilibration) to 8.2 for time of equilibration longer than 20 days. The method termed mass titration was used in [672], but it was different from the method discussed above. 

The PZC values have been shown to change systematically with the extent of oxidation for example, the more oxidized the carbon, the lower its PZC [12] value. Other ways to determine the PZC are the pH drift method used by Lopez-Ramon et al. [72], as well as the reverse mass titration, a modification of the Noh and Schwarz method [63,68]. 

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