ERIC Number: EJ1221740
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Jul
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: N/A
Quantifying the Cross-Sensitivity of Glass pH Electrodes in Alkaline Solutions
Boisen, Olivia; Corral, Alesha; Pope, Emily; Goeltz, John C.
Journal of Chemical Education, v96 n7 p1418-1423 Jul 2019
Standard glass pH electrodes are ubiquitous instruments used in research and in classrooms to measure the hydrogen ions present in a solution. While many chemists and educators have communicated ways to support teaching conceptual understanding of solution pH and the function of pH probes and dyes, the community lacks a methodology that enables students to move beyond a qualitative discussion of pH probe cross-sensitivity to other cations such as Li[superscript +] and Na[superscript +]. Here, we present an affordable method whereby students learn to quantify such instrumental limitations and cross-sensitivities. The reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) detects changes in hydrogen ion activity via electrochemical potential and serves as the baseline in this study to standardize the cation sensitivity of several glass membrane pH probes. Increasing additions of a salt, e.g., NaCl, in their corresponding alkali solutions, e.g., 0.10 M NaOH, were used to observe the shift in measured pH between the RHE (nominally only H[superscript +]) and glass pH probes (H[superscript +] plus other cations). The generated working curves were found to be specific to each glass pH electrode, the cation identity, and the solution pH. Taken together, this report provides a methodology that equips instructors and research mentors to teach undergraduates about systematic error associated with instrumentation and specifically how to improve the accuracy of pH probe measurements in saline or alkaline environments.
Descriptors: Measurement Equipment, Chemistry, College Science, Science Instruction, Undergraduate Students, Error of Measurement, Accuracy
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A