A spot test for ammonium ion by the color band formation method

Removing nutrients from wastewaters is important in controlling eutrophication. Processes for removing nutrients require accurate control of operational conditions, and it is necessary to monitor nutrient concentrations during the removal process. For this purpose, a simple and accurate analytical method is especially important for small-scale wastewater treatment facilities. Here, we report a simple colorimetric method for determining NH4+-N in wastewater. The method is to detect NH4+-N by a color band length formed in a minicolumn, and similar methods for heavy metals detection were reported by Morosanova et al. In this study, the length of the color band of indonaphthol dye trapped on an adsorbent in a minicolumn was linearly correlated with NH4+-N concentration in the range 1–10 mg NH4+-N l−1 under optimized conditions. This methods was developed on the basis of our previously reported color band methods for orthophosphate and nitrite determination, but the adsorbent used in this work consisted of an admixture of synthetic hydrotalcite particles and poly(vinyl chloride) particles coated with equal amounts of benzylcetyldimethylammonium chloride and biphenyl. When the method was applied to actual wastewaters, the results corresponded well with the results obtained by the standard method, and suspended solids (SS) and dissolved organic pollutants did not interfere with detection.