The rapid growth of the Earth's population has led to massive increases in the consumption of energy and resources and in the production of consumer products and chemicals. It is estimated that 17 million chemical compounds are currently on the market, of which 100,000 are produced on a large industrial scale. Many of these enter the environment. This leads to a demand for sensitive analytical procedures and high-performance analytical instruments.
pH value, conductivity and oxygen requirement are important characteristics in water and soil analysis. The first two of these can be determined rapidly; for the third, the titration that is used is also the one used in numerous single determinations. This article describes several important standard-compliant determinations in water and soil analysis.