A reagent-free acid-base titration method via an electrodialytic titrant generator

We describe a reagent-free acid-base titration method, in which only water is added and the titrant is online electrodialytically produced. Electrodialytic eluent generator, a well-established technique in ion chromatography to produce high purity base or acid eluent through precise control of an electric current, has been for the first time used for titration, termed as electrodialytic titrant generator (ETG). Three kinds of titrants produced by ETG have been demonstrated, including potassium hydroxide, methanesulfuric acid and sulfuric acid. A series of titrants with different concentration up to at least 140 mM (e.g. KOH) could be accurately and reproducibly obtained by manipulating current and the KOH titrant showed extremely high purity. The titration results achieved by ETG were in a good agreement with those obtained by the regular way and their ratio was in the range of 0.9918 and 1.0034. Good accuracy and precision were achieved for ETG titration, as indicated by 2.2% of relative error and 0.17% of relative standard error. Its utility was demonstrated to measure pKa-differentiated capacity of anion exchange resins.