A method for the measurement of vitamin B12concentration in sea water

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Abstract
The vitamin B12concentration in sea water is so very low that only the most sensitive microbiological assay techniques are likely to be capable of measuring it, but the salt concentration is so high as to be inhibitory to most of the organisms conventionally used for the microbiological assay of the vitamin. Nevertheless, the consideration that vitamin B12concentration may have an influence on the amounts and types of life present in sea areas has persuaded several investigators to attempt its measurement.The methods so far employed have each their own advantages and dis-advantages (Droop, 1954, 1955; Lewin, 1954; Sweeney, 1954; Cowey, 1956; Adair & Vishniac, 1958). The method to be described here offers advantages in sensitivity, permitting direct measurement of the vitamin in small quantities of oceanic waters after further dilution; samples to be measured pass through comparatively few different containers and thus there is less risk of their accumulating adventitious vitamin; simple and easily cleaned apparatus is used, and much less bench-work is involved than when methods other than dilution are used for lowering the salt concentration.

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