Some pitfalls and considerations of plasma ammonia estimation

Several approaches to the estimation of plasma ammonia have been tested and compared: indophenol, Nessler, iodometric techniques were studied as well as enzymatic spectrophotometric and radiometric methods. Their lower safe limits of estimation were determined and it was found that most of them were not viable for plasma estimations because of its very low ammonia levels. The need for a concentration/purification step and the lack of repetability in this phase at very low concentrations, made very unreliable the utilization of all methods studied except for the enzymatic radiometric method tested that was barely usable for plasma ammonia estimations.