Abstract
IN the course of work on the neutralization of formaldehyde in living bacterial cultures, it was found that the Hantzsch reaction between acetylacetone, ammonia and formaldehyde proceeded so readily at pH 6 that it afforded a good method of estimating microgram amounts of the latter. The yellow colour due to the formation of diacetyl-dihydro-lutidine is fully developed in two hours at room temperature, the molecular extinction being 8,000 at 412 mµ. The reaction will be fully described elsewhere; but a suitable reagent is known to be M/20 acetylacetone and M/30 acetic acid in molar aqueous ammonium acetate. The only unexpected interfering substance found was sulphite.
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NASH, T. Colorimetric Determination of Formaldehyde under Mild Conditions. Nature 170, 976 (1952). https://doi.org/10.1038/170976a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/170976a0
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