High-frequency measurement of seawater chemistry: Flow-injection analysis of macronutrients

Abstract

We adapted a commercially available flow‐injection autoanalyzer (Lachat Quik‐Chem 8000) to measure seawater nitrate concentrations at a rate of nearly 0.1 Hz and phosphate and silicate concentrations at a rate half that. Several minor improvements, including reduced sample‐loop size, high sample flushing rate, modified carrier chemistry, and use of peak height rather than peak area as a proxy for nutrient concentration aided in the increase in sampling rate. The most significant improvement, however, was the construction of a copperized cadmium NO3− reduction column that had a high surface area to volume ratio and a stable packing geometry. Preliminary results from a cruise in the Ross Sea in austral spring of 1997 are shown. Precision of all three analyses is better than 1%. Comparison of the nutrient concentrations determined by the rapid analysis method described here with traditional discrete analyses shows that nitrate and silicate determined by the two approaches are within a few percent of each other, but that the phosphate concentrations determined by the rapid analysis are as much as 10% lower than those determined by the discrete analyses.KEYWORDS: seawater chemistry, flow-injection analysi