It is known that the urea will be degraded to NH4+ and CO2 within a hydrolysis process. In higher concentration of urea, [NH4+] increases till the point at which the solution is supersaturated with NH4+ and the produced ammonia will come out of the system as gas. At this point [NH4+] is constant while [urea] decreases. So measuring the [NH4+] concentration can not give the reaction progress after the supersaturation point. am I right? If so, which method do you suggest to monitor the [urea] along the urea hydrolysis reaction? can Nessler method work or it is just for [NH4+] measurement?
Thanks for your answer;
urea concentrations are 1M, 0.55M and 0.1M.
Give UV-Vis a shot. The carbonyl group of the urea molecule responds to UV-Vis. Thus if you calibrate the observed peak intensity to the concentration of urea mixture, you can observe the disappearance of urea in the main experiments.
The only thing you need to make sure of is that your concentrations are not too high (you won't see anything if everything gets absorbed - ala. Beers Law), and that your other mixture components don't absorb at the same peak position.
There are test kits available for measuring urea in biological samples. Perhaps they would work for you.
Example:
http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/mak006?lang=en®ion=US
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