Method for rapid removal of ethanol from chloroform in soil microbial biomass determinations

Abstract

A method is described for the removal of stabilising ethanol from reagent‐grade chloroform (CHCl₃) which is quicker, safer, and as effective and reliable as the standard method described in Jenkinson and Powlson (1976). The proposed method foregoes the use of concentrated acid and distillation and involves shaking CHC1₃ with distilled water followed by drying the final chloroform phase over anhydrous calcium chloride (CaCl₂). Both methods yielded CHC1₃ containing residual ethanol of less than 0.001% w/w.

Notes

Department of Plant and Microbial Sciences.

Department of Chemistry.