Coulometric microrespirometry

Abstract

Capacitive coulometry is based on the automatic quantitative replacement of O2 consumed by an animal in a closed system with electrolytic O2, produced by discharging a capacitor through a CuSO4 solution. The sensitivity of the device is better than 0.1 nl. The unit volume of O2 produced (1 nl) is both accurate and precise within 1% in a temperature range from 2.8 to 40 degrees C. The upper limit of recordable O2 consumption is 1 ml/h. The microrespirometer can be autoclaved, making the technique ideally suited for metabolic studies in microbiology, cell and organ cultures, and comparative physiology.