Summary of Iodometric Titration on a Printed Card

Paper Analytical Machines: Solving Chemistry Problems in Low-Resource Environments

Paper analytical machines are powerful tools for solving chemistry problems in low-resource environments. The tools enable chemistry experiments to be conducted in places where laboratory reagents, instrumentation, and glassware are not readily available. Paper analytical instruments are designed to perform specific tasks such as extracting fluids from cells or particulates, storing reagents, or serving as timers (Myers, Kernisan and Lieberman 3764).

Iodometric Titration with Paper Test Card

The paper test card was designed in this experiment to perform iodometric titration, which is an application that requires storage as well as the mixing of multiple mutually incompatible reagents on demand. Upon the user applying the test solution to a test card, the titration gets activated. Reconstitution of the dried reagents occurs after which they are combined via the STEM mechanism. The device is able to quantify 0.8 to 15 ppm of the atoms of iodine from an aqueous solution of iodate. This can be applied, for instance, in quantifying levels of iodine in fortified salt. During the experiment, an accuracy of 1.4 ppm I, as well as a 0.9 ppm I precision, was obtained by the blinded internal lab validation when newly trained users read the test card. However, the precision and accuracy improved greatly to 0.9 ppm I when a computer software was used to process the images. Out of the 110 cards, four of them showed discrepancy reading due to errors of fabrication (Myers, Kernisan and Lieberman 3767).

Identification of Substandard Beta-lactam Antibiotics

Similarly, the paper card is able to identify substandard beta-lactam antibiotics by using the iodometric back-titration. Using the paper test card to quantify amoxicillin led to a good distinction between solutions that had a difference of 0.15 mg/mL with 0 to 0.9 mg/mL working range. It is noted that a test card was actually designed in a bid to meet the ASSURED criteria of World Health Organization for use in the low resource conditions in which procedures of laboratory-based analytical are often unavailable (Myers, Kernisan and Lieberman 3768).

Work Cited

Myers, Nicholas M., Emalee N. Kernisan, and Marya Lieberman. “Lab On Paper: Iodometric Titration On A Printed Card.” Analytical Chemistry 87.7 (2015): 3764-3770. Web.