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What would be a good way to assay Urea in aq. solution? The test doesn't need to be super accurate. 1% accuracy is fine.

But it needs to be relatively fast & robust to carry out.

NaHCO3 is a co-dissolved impurity so the test needs to tolerate NaHCO3 interference.

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In clinical chemistry, urea is quantitativly determined as follows:

  • Hydrolyze urea with urease to ammonia and carbon dioxide
  • react the ammonia with 2-oxo-glutarate in the presence of glutamate dehydrogenase and $\ce{NADH}$: $\ce{NADH}$ is converted to $\ce{NAD+}$
  • monitor the decay of the UV absorption of $\ce{NADH}$ at $\lambda$= 340 and 410 nm
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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks! Is there any titration based method you know of? There may not be a spectrophotometer available. $\endgroup$
    – curious_cat
    Commented May 2, 2016 at 4:38
  • $\begingroup$ @curious_cat I'm not aware of any, but that's doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't any. There's another method that involves the reaction of urea with diacetyl monoxime. But again, this requires a photometer to monitor the absorption at $\lambda$= 525 nm. $\endgroup$
    – Klaus-Dieter Warzecha
    Commented May 2, 2016 at 4:52

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