Analysis of inorganic constituents in milk and simulation of CFA-C reagent

Milk analysis can be successfully performed by dilution of samples with CFA-C, a commercial mixture of water-soluble tertiary amines, and measurements by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). However, due to the costs of this reagent and contamination, the work here described investigated an alternative reagent that could be used instead of CFA-C. Qualitative analysis showed that the commercial mixture does not contain boric acid or EDTA. A potentiometric titration of a CFA-C 10% v/v aqueous solution using HCl as titrant showed two peaks and it was inferred that 90% of the acid was consumed for neutralization of free amines and the remaining 10% was consumed for protonation of an anion of a weak acid employed to generate a buffer R3N/R3NH+ with the molar ratio 10:1. For simulating the CFA-C reagent, it was prepared a solution containing 6.06 mol L-1 monoethanolamine (MEA) plus 0.20 mol L-1 citric acid, triprotic, to form a buffer 10:1. The citrate anion is a good chelating ligand for Ca(II). An other citrate buffer was prepared (1.52 mol L-1) using trishydroxymethylaminomethane (TRIS), which is an amine less soluble in water. These mixtures were characterized by potentiometric and thermal analysis. Both amine/citrate buffers presented a performance comparable to the commercial reagent.