MadSci Network: Chemistry
Query:

Subject: How can I get the nitrogen out of grass?

Date: Sun Aug 17 10:19:22 1997
Posted by Aram Langhans
Grade level: teacher/prof
School: Naches High School
City: Naches State/Province: WA
Country: USA
Area of science: Chemistry
ID: 871831162.Ch
Message:
This may sound odd, but since we have been multching our lawn rather than removing the clippings, I have always been curious as to how much nitrogen and phosphorous we were removing before we began multching.  I was thinking that it might be a nice lab for my students.  I you could take a certain amount of grass and convert the nitrogen to nitrate and  the phosphorous to phosphate my students then could do a photometric determination of the concentration of each in a square meter of lawn.

So, do you know of any chemcal means to get the nitrogen out of the grass and convert it to nitrate that I could test?  I am assuming that somewhere along the line I would have to precipitate the nitrogen in some form other than nitrate to get it away from all the other stuff that would interfere with the test, then redisolve it.

Maybe phosphate would be easier to purify.

Anyway, if it could be done it would be a great lab.


Re: How can I get the nitrogen out of grass?

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