The analyte is can be either a weak base or a weak acid which is developed from a strong solution. The titrant is normally used to measure out the quantity of the standard solution of known concentration acid or by added by a burette to the unknown concentration solution. The end point is the precise of the result of which the reagents achieve equilibrium. You know when the end point has been reached when the reaction has been completed and it is shown by a colour change. The indicator is a very weak solution, which is able to show a change in pH of the reaction that is taking place by the colour change. The indicator has no effect on the reagents which are involved. Some applications where titration is able to be used are:
- To be able to determine the unknown concentrations
- To be able to test water ( chlorides and hardness)
- To be able to find out the concentration of a fruit juice
- To be able to understand the complex amino acid patterns
- To be able to fine the acidity if dried milk products.
How is titration carried out in industry
There are many places and reasons why titration can be carried out in the industry. For example in the waste oil industry, oil titration is the indicator test for free fatty acids, within restaurant fryer oil, it only takes about 30 seconds for it to titrate, this is done by reacting a tiny sample of the free fatty acids with a measure amount of lye using pH to signify when all the free fatty acids have been used up. The Free fatty acids are acid that are been produced from the heat and the cooking of food with oil over a period of time. Free fatty acid gathers it causes by using vegetable oil, so that it is able to become more and more acidic. The over-use or over heated oil, could turn into something toxic to our heath as it is been implicated in cancer. The variations on these titrations are mostly used in the petrochemical industry to define the differences in acidity of waste oil that could possible become biodiesel. This type of process has been incredibly becoming increasing popular, this is due to the price of oil and petrol is rising quickly. Titration are carried out in a lot of industries, this can include the dairy industry, the testing of milk and cheese products; the water industry, this is where they use titration to check the quality of the drinking water; and the pharmaceutical industry, this is where they check the quality of drugs which are on the product line, theses three examples where titration are used and are just a few examples where titration is carried out in the industrial. The titration in the industry for different types of investigations has been extremely precise and reliable compared to the class titrations. The big differences between the industry and the class room titration experiments is that in industry they could use machinery which is able to deliver the amount of reactant which is needed and also the equipment which is used to perform the process itself. The processes which are done in the industry could possible take places without the need of the involvement of the laboratory staff. This can also mean that the machines are able to read the results from for the end point really quickly and extremely precise. In the industrial production scale maybe large the laboratory testing and the quality assurance could be possibly on a small scale and could still be done manually although it will be going on at all times and covering many points within the manufacturing process.
Some examples of the processes that are related with titration in the industry can include the manual addition of titrant to analyte with the addition of an indicator where the end point will be concluded by eye. For example sugar and salt determinations are normally or commonly performed within the food laboratories, by using a manual colourmetric end point titration, how it can suffer from the production of the colour throughout the reactions, this would mean that masking (hiding) the indicator will/can make the end point hard to see. But yet still, some processes need to checked/monitored continuously, this is so they are able to monitor the progress of the process, whereas titration are necessitated on continuous basis, the instruments that the manufacturers can provide a complete system, this can include an:
- Ion analyser software
- Ion selective electrode
- PH electrode
- Electrode-computer interface
- Electrode head
- Temperature sensor.
And some applications in which it can include are:
- Within the monitoring progress of the process of alcohol production for both industrial and consumption
- Within the water quality analysis of surface and ground water e.g. aquaculture, fish pounds, sewage and industrial effluent
- Within the food and drinking quality control e.g. fermentors and bio-reactors
- Within the pharmaceutical agricultural and medical research.
Within on the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, surfactants (e.g. anionic, cationic and non-ionic) are using so that it can allow the substances to flow or spread much more easily, this is done by reducing the surface tension of water within it. The quality and content of the surfactant could be determined by a suitable applied method of titration. For every different type of industry, the manufacturers will produce automated equipment/machinery that meets the precise needs if the processes which are being carried out. Here are a few examples where titration is been used, you should note that not all the processes will include titration, but may be used to monitor the production and processing of the final product.
Ultrasonic chemical reaction monitoring
In this process, it allows us to analysis chemical reactions and molecular binding, this doesn’t require any indicators, and it only uses a very tiny amount of samples. In the ultrasonic titration, the cells that receive and transmits the ultrasound signals are normally filled with an analyte, also a titrant is also injected is a series of steps, this is a reference cell set up with similar conditions that allows us to monitor the behaviour of the reaction which is taking place. The monitor screen will show some data at multiple stages of the reaction; this then provides us with a few pictures of the changes within the reaction molecules at a given time within the process. The end-point is normally calculated by the data which is gained from the molecular binding. The typical analytes are polymers which use conjunction with ligands, the ultrasonic method can see nearly all the reaction in real time, so therefore if there is any sorter change with in the molecular arrangement and the molecular structure, it can possibly be detected.
The industrial application of ultrasonic titration
This method is able to be applied/used to the application areas of:
- Enzymes (activity, kinetics)
- Medical diagnostics ( blood testing)
- Molecular binding (proteins, nucleic acids, chelators)
- Drug screening
- Polymer synthesis.
And these can used in places like:
- Food and beverage production
- Environmental
- Biotech
- Polymers
- Pharmaceutical
- Biomedical.
The automation makes sure the uniformity in technique producing analytical data of consistently high quality. This then will eliminates all the need for labour intensive manual measurements; this would mean the manufacture would be saving time and also money, with increase to the productivity.
If you would like more information about how titration is used in ultrasonic chemical reaction, please visit this website:
Photometric titration
This is a titration, which the titrant and solution are the reason the formation of a metal complex is accompanied by the observable change in the light absorbance by the titrated solution. As the light is been used as the principal of analysis, it is important to select an appropriate wavelength for analysis, as all the components in a titration absorb light. They try their best to select a wavelength which can absorbed by only one component, the part of the molecule for producing this chromophore (light/an atom or group whose presence is responsible for the colour of a compound) should follow Beer’s law, at this particular wavelength. This basically means that there is a change in the observed absorbance characteristics as the concentration of the absorbing species changes. A graph of absorbance against titrant volume should produce a straight line, the chromophore concentration changes up to the point of equivalence, but it doesn’t change any further, even trying adding titrant will not have any affect. There shall be two straight lines produced on the graph, absorbance/titrant volume up to the end point and absorbance/titrant volume beyond the end point, will intersect at the equivalence point. The accuracy of this method is brought into questions, when the absorbance level is high. The percentage transmittance (%T) of the selected wavelength is low, and so it is desirable to choose lower analyte concentrations, a buffer and wavelengths associated with slow absorbance changes.
Industrial application of photometric titration
Both citric acid and tartaric acid are products of the fermentation process. The acid-base titration, using phenolphthalein indicator, is extensively used for the total acidity determination in wine.
Automated titration has significantly changed by employing the flow injection analysis process to handle solutions and detection by spectrophotometry. In addition to the laboratory personnel carrying out small scale testing, each industry will have its own specialised instrumentation to monitor and adjust the processes automatically.
Conductivity titration
Unlike the photometric titration, conductivity titrations don’t use indicators but electrical charge. This form of titration produces a curved plot of conductance against volume of sodium hydroxide (NaOH). When titrating a strong base with a strong acid, conductance falls considerably at the end-point, which is then used as an indicator measure.
Industrial application of conductivity titration
This can be used when a strong base and strong acid are been used and where the indicator colour could be masked due to the analyte, titrant or its products. A photometric indication titration relies on the colour change in the range of the indicators. Also the temperature could significantly affect the end point of the titration; this means that the temperature needs to be kept constant. If the temperature is being kept constant it means that the results can be obtained, however this will require monitoring and the control if automatic testing is being undertaken.
by
ardit1 (student)
