Titration end point and

Karl Fischer Titration -ASTM D6304 The Karl Fischer titration, KFT, method determines water concentration by titrating a measured amount of sample and Karl Fischer reagent. The reagent reacts with the OH molecules present in the moisture, and present in other compounds, and depolarizes an electrode. The corresponding potentiometric change is used to determine the titration end point and calculates the concentration value for water. KFT reagents include iodine, methanol and chloroform and thus require a separate waste stream due to the chloroform. 

Ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry has also been applied to titrimetry. In this case the variation in the absorbance of the analyte with addition of titrant is used to obtain a spectrophotometric profile from which titration end points and/or equilibrium constants, etc., can be determined. This has been applied to the whole range of titrations in which a chromophore is generated. These include acid-base, redox, and complexometric titrations. 

The determinate error in a titration due to the difference between the end point and the equivalence point. 

In the overview to this chapter we noted that the experimentally determined end point should coincide with the titration s equivalence point. For an acid-base titration, the equivalence point is characterized by a pH level that is a function of the acid-base strengths and concentrations of the analyte and titrant. The pH at the end point, however, may or may not correspond to the pH at the equivalence point. To understand the relationship between end points and equivalence points we must know how the pH changes during a titration. In this section we will learn how to construct titration curves for several important types of acid-base titrations. Our... 

Earlier we made an important distinction between an end point and an equivalence point. The difference between these two terms is important and deserves repeating. The equivalence point occurs when stoichiometrically equal amounts of analyte and titrant react. For example, if the analyte is a triprotic weak acid, a titration with NaOH will have three equivalence points corresponding to the addition of one, two, and three moles of OH for each mole of the weak acid. An equivalence point, therefore, is a theoretical not an experimental value. 

For volumes of titrant before the equivalence point, a plot of Vb X [H3O+] versus Vb is a straight line with an x-intercept equal to the volume of titrant at the end point and a slope equal to Results for the data in Table 9.5 are shown in Table 9.6 and plotted in Figure 9.13d. Plots such as this, which convert a portion of a titration curve into a straight line, are called Gran plots. 

Accuracy When working with macro-major and macro-minor samples, acid-base titrations can be accomplished with relative errors of 0.1-0.2%. The principal limitation to accuracy is the difference between the end point and the equivalence point. 

The precision of the end point signal depends on the method used to locate the end point and the shape of the titration curve. With a visual indicator, the precision of the end point signal is usually between +0.03 mb and 0.10 mb. End points determined by direct monitoring often can be determined with a greater precision. 

Pipette 25 mL iron(III) solution (0.05M) into a conical flask and dilute to 100 mL with de-ionised water. Adjust the pH to 2-3 Congo red paper may be used — to the first perceptible colour change. Add 5 drops of the indicator solution, warm the contents of the flask to 40 °C, and titrate with standard (0.05M) EDTA solution until the initial blue colour of the solution turns grey just before the end point, and with the final drop of reagent changes to yellow. 

Weak acid with a strong base. In the titration of a weak acid with a strong base, the shape of the curve will depend upon the concentration and the dissociation constant Ka of the acid. Thus in the neutralisation of acetic acid (Ka— 1.8 x 10-5) with sodium hydroxide solution, the salt (sodium acetate) which is formed during the first part of the titration tends to repress the ionisation of the acetic acid still present so that its conductance decreases. The rising salt concentration will, however, tend to produce an increase in conductance. In consequence of these opposing influences the titration curves may have minima, the position of which will depend upon the concentration and upon the strength of the weak acid. As the titration proceeds, a somewhat indefinite break will occur at the end point, and the graph will become linear after all the acid has been neutralised. Some curves for acetic acid-sodium hydroxide titrations are shown in Fig. 13.2(h) clearly it is not possible to fix an accurate end point. 

In view of the problems referred to above in connection with direct potentiometry, much attention has been directed to the procedure of potentio-metric titration as an analytical method. As the name implies, it is a titrimetric procedure in which potentiometric measurements are carried out in order to fix the end point. In this procedure we are concerned with changes in electrode potential rather than in an accurate value for the electrode potential with a given solution, and under these circumstances the effect of the liquid junction potential may be ignored. In such a titration, the change in cell e.m.f. occurs most rapidly in the neighbourhood of the end point, and as will be explained later (Section 15.18), various methods can be used to ascertain the point at which the rate of potential change is at a maximum this is at the end point of the titration. 

In such reactions, even though the indicator electrode functions reversibly, the maximum value of AE/AV will not occur exactly at the stoichiometric equivalence point. The resulting titration error (difference between end point and equivalence point) can be calculated or can be determined by experiment and a correction applied. The titration error is small when the potential change at the equivalence point is large. With most of the reactions used in potentiometric analysis, the titration error is usually small enough to be neglected. It is assumed that sufficient time is allowed for the electrodes to reach equilibrium before a reading is recorded. 

Prepare an approximately 0.1 M silver nitrate solution. Place 0.1169 g of dry sodium chloride in the beaker, add 100 mL of water, and stir until dissolved. Use a silver wire electrode (or a silver-plated platinum wire), and a silver-silver chloride or a saturated calomel reference electrode separated from the solution by a potassium nitrate-agar bridge (see below). Titrate the sodium chloride solution with the silver nitrate solution following the general procedure described in Experiment 1 it is important to have efficient stirring and to wait long enough after each addition of titrant for the e.m.f. to become steady. Continue the titration 5 mL beyond the end point. Determine the end point and thence the molarity of the silver nitrate solution. 

Plot the titration graph, evaluate the end point, and calculate the exact... 

Procedure. Pipette 25.0 mL of the thiosulphate solution into the titration cell e.g. a 150mL Pyrex beaker. Insert two similar platinum wire or foil electrodes into the cell and connect to the apparatus of Fig. 16.17. Apply 0.10 volt across the electrodes. Adjust the range of the micro-ammeter to obtain full-scale deflection for a current of 10-25 milliamperes. Stir the solution with a magnetic stirrer. Add the iodine solution from a 5 mL semimicro burette slowly in the usual manner and read the current (galvanometer deflection) after each addition of the titrant. When the current begins to increase, stop the addition then add the titrant by small increments of 0.05 or 0.10 mL. Plot the titration graph, evaluate the end point, and calculate the concentration of the thiosulphate solution. It will be found that the current is fairly constant until the end point is approached and increases rapidly beyond. 

The experimental technique is simple. The cell containing the solution to be titrated is placed in the light path of a spectrophotometer, a wavelength appropriate to the particular titration is selected, and the absorption is adjusted to some convenient value by means of the sensitivity and slit-width controls. A measured volume of the titrant is added to the stirred solution, and the absorbance is read again. This is repeated at several points before the end point and several more points after the end point. The latter is found graphically. 

In the practice of potentiometric titration there are two aspects to be dealt with first the shape of the titration curve, i.e., its qualitative aspect, and second the titration end-point, i.e., its quantitative aspect. In relation to these aspects, an answer should also be given to the questions of analogy and/or mutual differences between the potentiometric curves of the acid-base, precipitation, complex-formation and redox reactions during titration. Excellent guidance is given by the Nernst equation, while the acid-base titration may serve as a basic model. Further, for convenience we start from the following fairly approximate assumptions (1) as titrations usually take place in dilute (0.1 M) solutions we use ion concentrations in the Nernst equation, etc., instead of ion activities and (2) during titration the volume of the reaction solution is considered to remain constant. 

On the basis of the Henderson equation for titration of acid or base one can prove mathematically that the half-neutralization point represents a true inflection point and that as the titration end-point dpH/dA is maximal or minimal, respectively (the latter is only strictly true for titration of a weak acid with a weak base and vice versa). 

Considering the titration end-point or equivalence point, we in fact have to deal with the salt of a weak acid and a strong base or the reverse. Such a salt undergoes hydrolysis, e.g., for NaA, A + H20 HA + OH, so that the hydrolysis constant can be written as... 

Majer65 in 1936 proposed measuring, instead of the entire polarographic curve, only the limiting current at a potential sufficiently high for that purpose if under these conditions one titrates metal ions such as Zn2+, Cd2+, Pb2+, Ni2+, Fe3+ and Bi3+ with EDTA66, one obtains a titration as depicted in Fig. 3.55 i, decreases to a very low value, in agreement with the stability constant of the EDTA-metal complex and the titration end-point is established by the intersection of the ij curves before and after that point correction of the i values for alteration of the solution volume by the titrant increments as in conductometric titration is recommended. 

It is certainly clear that a coulometric titration, like any other type of titration, needs an end-point detection system in principle any detection method that chemically fits in can be used, be it electrometric, colorimetric, photoabsorptionmetric, etc. for instance, in a few cases the colour change of the reagent generated (e.g., I2) may be observed visually, or after the addition of a redox, metal or pH indicator the titration end-point can be detected photoabsorptiometrically by means of a light source and photocell combination. Concerning the aforementioned coulometric titration of Fe(II), it is... 

In practice, the volume of titrant is plotted instead of the titration parameter, a. At the titration end-points Ej and E2, the volumes of titrant consumed indicate the respective amounts of the acids, while their pH values or better the pH heights around the half-neutralization points, h.n.p and h.n.p2, are related to the identities of the acids. Therefore, in the two-dimensional figure the abscissa represents the quantitative aspects and the ordinate the qualitative aspects. 

The second question concerns the quality of the chemical control, directed more at the chemical analysis proper and its procedure. Important factors here are sufficient specificity and accuracy together with a short analysis time. In connection with accuracy, we can possible consider the quantization of the analytical information obtainable. For instance, from the above example of titration, if we assume for the pH measurement an accuracy of 0.02, an uncertainty remains of 0.04 over a total range of 14.0, which means a gain in information of n1 = 14.0/0.04 = 350 (at least 8 bits) with an accuracy of 5% as a mean for the titration end-point establishment of both acids, the remaining uncertainty of 1% over a range of 2 x 100% means a gain in information of n2 = 200 (at least 7 bits), so that the two-dimensional presentation of this titration represents a quantity of information I = 2log nx n2 = 15 bits at least. 

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