Nitrate test to 2.5 micrograms and a concentration of 1 in 25,000 parts. Devarda's alloy (Copper/Aluminium/Zinc) is a reducing agent. When reacted with nitrate in sodium hydroxide solution, ammonia is liberated. The ammonia formed may be detected by its characteristic odor, and by damp red litmus paper's turning blue, signalling that it is an alkali — very few gases other than ammonia evolved from wet chemistry are alkaline. Aluminium is the reducing agent in this reaction that will occur. Diphenylamine may be used as a wet chemical test for the presence of the nitrate ion. In this test, a solution of diphenylamine
Hammett acidity function is a much stronger acid. The value H = -12 for pure sulfuric acid must not be interpreted as pH = -12 (which would imply an impossibly high HO concentration of 10 mol/L in ideal solution). Instead it means that the acid species present (HSO) has a protonating ability equivalent to HO at a fictitious (ideal) concentration of 10 mol/L, as measured by its ability to protonate weak bases. Although the Hammett acidity function is the best known acidity function, other acidity functions have been developed by authors such as Arnett, Cox, Katrizky, Yates, and Stevens. On this scale, pure