Abstract
Summary
1. A direct acidimetric titration method is presented for the estimation of serum carbonate in small volumes of serum or plasma. Serum bicarbonate is precipitated as the barium salt by the addition of barium hydroxide, the precipitated bicarbonate is dissolved in hot boric acid, and the Ba(H2BO3)2 in solution is titrated with standard acid to the pH of a pure solution of boric acid with the aid of an ultramicro burette. The titration represents the bicarbonate in equivalents. 2. Various critical points in the method were investigated and are discussed. The probable existence in serum of a protein bound carbonate is indicated. There is close agreement between the values obtained in this method on 0.1 ml of serum and the results obtained by the manometric procedure of Van Slyke, employing 1.0 ml of serum.
The authors are indebted to the valuable assistance of Miss Penni A. Lipschitz in the preparation of the manuscript, and to Mr. Bruno Elkan and Mr. Harold Schonhorn for some of the analyses performed under routine conditions. We wish to pay particular respects to Mr. Irving Portnow (deceased), who started this problem. The authors are also indebted to Dr. Adolph Bernhard, Head, Department of Biochemistry, of the Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City, for his encouragement of this study.
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