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Potentiometric Titration of Coal in a Non-Aqueous Medium

Abstract

Brooks and Maher1 have determined the groups in a wide range of Australian coals which contain acidic oxygen by titration of a suspension in anhydrous ethylenediamine, using sodium amino-ethoxide in ethylenediamine as the titrant. They used two antimony electrodes, one in the reaction medium and the second built into the burette tip, where it was washed continuously by the titrant. The use of the basic solvent ethylenediamine permitted the titration of carboxylic acid groups and probably the more strongly acidic phenolic groupings, though Fritz and Keen2 state that some substituted phenols are too weakly acidic to be titrated, as are some polyhydric phenols such as resorcinol and catechol, where no definite end-point can be located. However, according to van der Heijde and Dahmen3, increased basicity of the solvent does not lead to an increased apparent acidity of weak (that is, non-levelled) acids. If there is any influence at all it works in the opposite direction.

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References

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PRINGLE, W. Potentiometric Titration of Coal in a Non-Aqueous Medium. Nature 183, 815–816 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1038/183815a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/183815a0

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