A new porous plastic fiber probe for ammonia monitoring

A novel porous plastic fiber probe was developed for detection of dissolved ammonia. This porous plastic fiber sensitive probe was prepared based on the co-polymerization technique. This novel porous fiber probe has been used for determination of dissolved ammonia in aqueous solution when Erythrosin A was used as the fluorescent indicator. The principle and preparation of this novel porous fiber probe were presented in details. The influences of polymer materials, the effects of pH and the properties of porous plastic fiber were also discussed. Experiments revealed that this fiber probe had an interconnected porous structure and high ammonia gas permeability and water impermeability. In aqueous solution, it was highly selective and stable to dissolved ammonia. The result shows that the probe responds to dissolved ammonia over the linear concentration range of 2.0×10−4-9.1×10−3 mol l−1 and it is not influenced by pH in solution.