Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:15:04.533Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Hydrolysis of Ammonium Ions in Sea Water-a Theoretical Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

M. Whitfield
M. Whitfield
Affiliation:
The Laboratory, Marine Biological Association, Citadel Hill, Plymouth
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A number of procedures are now available for calculating the effects of ionic inter-actions on the behaviour of solutions as complex as sea water (Whitfield, 1973 a). These procedures are able to give a good account of the properties of the major electrolyte components (Leyendekkers, 1973 a; Robinson & Wood, 1972; Whitfield, 19736) and of the colligative properties of sea water (Robinson & Wood, 1972; Whitfield, 1973 c, d). However, greatest interest centres around the possibility of predicting the effects of these major components on the multitude of ionic equilibria that influence the properties of the less abundant constituents that are of greater biological and geological importance. It is here that the newer approaches to marine chemistry are weakest because suitable thermodynamic data are lacking. One system of practical importance that can be studied using a variety of theoretical approaches is the acid ionization of ammonium ions represented by the equation The toxicity of ammonium salts to freshwater life has been shown to be strongly dependent on the pH in a manner that is consistent with un-ionized ammonia (NH3) being the most lethal fraction (see, for example, Wuhrmann & Woker, 1948; Downing & Merkens, 1955; Lloyd & Herbert, i960; Hemens, 1966; and Brown, 1968). These papers and many others have been thoroughly reviewed (EIFAC Technical Paper no. 11, 1970, Kemp, Abrams & Overbeck, 1971). The free base (NH3) has a relatively high lipid solubility because it carries no charge and is therefore able to diffuse quite readily across cell membranes (Fromm & Gillette, 1968).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , August 1974 , pp. 565 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abegg, R. & Riesenfeld, H., 1902. Über das Lösungsvermögen von Saltzlösungen fur Ammoniak nach Messungen seines Partialdrucks. I. Zeitschrifte für physikalische Chemie, 40, 84–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barica, J., 1973. Reliability of an ammonia probe for electrometric determination of total ammonia nitrogen in fish tanks. Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 30, 1389–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, R. G. & Pinching, G. D., 1949. Acidic dissociation constant of ammonium ion at o to 50 °C, and the base strength of ammonia. Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards, 4, 419–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berner, R. A., 1971. Principles of Chemical Sedimentology, 210 pp. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Brown, V. M., 1968. The calculation of the acute toxicity of mixtures of poisons to rainbow trout. Water Research, 2, 723–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, J. & Hamann, S. D., 1953. The chemical effects of pressure. Part I. Transactions of the Faraday Society, 49, 1425–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, H. M. & Mccrea, J., 1901. Metal-Ammonia compounds in aqueous solution. Part II. The absorptive powers of dilute solutions of salts of the alkali metals. Journal of the Chemical Society (London), 79, 493–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Disteche, A. & Disteche, S., 1967. The effect of pressure on the dissociation of carbonic acid from measurements with buffered glass electrode cells. Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 114, 330–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downing, K. M. & Merkens, J. C., 1955. The influence of dissolved oxygen concentration on the toxicity of unionised ammonia to rainbow trout (Salmo gairdnerii Richardson). Annals of Applied Biology, 43, 243–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission, 1970. Water quality criteria for European freshwater fish. Report on ammonia and inland Fisheries. EIFAC Technical Paper, No. 11, 11 pp. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.Google Scholar
Fromm, P. O. & Gillette, J. R., 1968. Effect of ambient ammonia on blood ammonia and nitrogen excretion of Rainbow trout (Salmo gairdnerii). Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, 26, 887–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuoad, M. G., 1955. Die Säurestärke des Ammonium ions bie hohen Saltzkonzentration. Monotshefte für Chemie und verwandte Teile anderer Wissenschaften, 86, 141–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaines, A. G. Jr., & Pilson, M. E. Q., 1972. Anoxic water in the Pettaquamscutt River. Limnology and Oceanography, 17, 42–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrels, R. M. & Thompson, M. E., 1962. A chemical model for seawater at 25 °C and 1 atmo-sphere total pressure. American Journal of Science, 560, 57–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, T. R. & Clay, A. M., 1973. Determination of ammonia in aquaria and in seawater using the ammonia electrode. Analytical Chemistry, 45, 1757–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, J. E. & Thorne, R. L., 1967. Salt effects on non-electrolyte activity coefficients in mixed aqueous electrolyte solutions. II. Artificial and natural seawaters. Geochimica et Cosmochimica acta, 31, 2433–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansson, I., 1973. A new set of pH scales and standard buffers for sea water. Deep-Sea Research, 20, 479–91.Google Scholar
Harned, H. S. & Owen, B. B., 1958. The Physical Chemistry of Electrolytic Solutions. Monograph of the American Chemical Society, No. 137. New York: Reinhold.Google Scholar
Harned, H. S. & Robinson, R. A., 1928. The ionic concentrations and activity coefficients of weak electrolytes in certain salt solutions. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 50, 3157–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawley, J. E. & Pytowicz, R. M., 1973. Interpretation of pH measurements in concentrated electrolyte solutions. Marine Chemistry, 1, 245–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hemens, J., 1966. The toxicity of ammonia solutions to the mosquito fish (Gambusia affinis Baird and Girard). Journal and Proceedings of the Institute of Sewage Purification, 3, 265–71.Google Scholar
Herbert, D. W. M. & Shurben, D. S., 1965. The susceptibility of salmonid fish to poisons under estuarine conditions. II. Ammonium chloride. International Journal of Air and Water Pollution, 9, 89–91.Google Scholar
Ingri, N., Kakolowicz, W., Sillen, L. G. & Warnqvist, B., 1967. High speed computers as a supplement to graphical methods. V. Haftafall, a general program for calculating the composition of equilibrium mixtures. Talanta, 14, 1261–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kemp, H. T., Abrams, J. P. & Overbeck, R. C., 1971. Effects of Chemicals on Aquatic Life. In: Water Quality Criteria Data Book, 3, pp. A9 to A10. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Protection Agency. U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (Water Pollution Control Research Series 18050GWV 05/71).Google Scholar
Kilpi, S., 1937. Die Bestimmung der Dissoziationskonstante von Ammoniak und Wasser aus der Pufferkapazität. Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie, A180, 464–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leyendekkers, J. V., 1973 a. The chemical potentials of seawater components. Marine Chemistry, 1, 75–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leyendekkers, J. V., 1973 b. The ionic activity function of water and the activity coefficient of the hydrogen ion in seawater. Limnology and Oceanography (in the Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, R. & Herbert, D. W. M., 1960. The influence of carbon dioxide on the toxicity of unionised ammonia to rainbow trout (Salmo gairdnerii Richardson). Annals of Applied Biology, 45, 521–7.Google Scholar
Matthews, H. E. & Davies, C. W., 1933.The activity of ammonia in ammonium chloride solutions. Journal of the Chemical Society (London), 1933, 1435–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millero, F. J., 1969. The partial molal volumes of ions in seawater. Limnology and Oceanography, 14, 376–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millero, F. J., Hoff, E. V. & Kahn, L., 1972. The effect of pressure on the ionization of water at various temperatures from molal-volume data. Journal of Solution Chemistry, 1, 309–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, R. A. & Stokes, R. H., 1965. Electrolyte Solutions (2nd revised edition) 571 pp. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Robinson, R. A. & Wood, R. H., 1972. Calculations of the osmotic and activity coefficients of seawater at 25 °C. Journal of Solution Chemistry, 1, 481–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rush, R. M., 1969. Parameters for the calculation of osmotic and activity coefficients and tables of these coefficients for twenty-two aqueous mixtures of two electrolytes at 25 °C. Oak Ridge National Laboratory publication No. ORNL-4402.Google Scholar
Sillén, L. G. & Martell, A. E., 1964. ‘Stability constants of metal-ion complexes’. Special Publication No. 17, 374 pp. London: The Chemical Society.Google Scholar
Thomas, R. F. & Booth, R. L., 1973. Selective electrode measurement of ammonia in water and wastes. Environmental Science and Technology, 7, 523–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whitfield, M., 1972. Self-ionization of water in dilute sodium chloride solutions from 5°-35 °C and 1–2000 bars. Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data, 17, 124–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitfield, M., 1973 a. Seawater as an electrolyte solution. In ‘Chemical Oceanography’ (ed. Riley, J. P. and Skirrow, G.), 2nd edition. London: Academic Press (in the Press).Google Scholar
Whitfield, M., 1973 b. A chemical model for the major electrolyte component of seawater based on the Bransted-Guggenheim hypothesis. Marine Chemistry, 1, 251–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitfield, M., 1973 c. A comprehensive specific interaction model for seawater. Calculation of the osmotic coefficient. Deep-Sea Research 20, 57–67.Google Scholar
Whitfield, M., 1973 d. Procedures for calculating the osmotic coefficient of artificial sea waters. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 53, 685–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitfield, M., 1974. The ion-association model and the buffer capacity of the carbon dioxide system in sea water at 25 °C and 1 atmosphere total pressure. Limnology and Oceanography (in the Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wurhmann, K. & Woker, M., 1948. Experimented Untersuchungen iiber die Ammoniak - und Blausaure vergiftung. Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Hydrologie, 11, 210–44.Google Scholar