Titrations

Titration, also known as titrimetry, is a common laboratory method of quantitative chemical analysis that is used to determine the unknown concentration of an identified analyte. Since volume measurements play a key role in titration, it is also known as volumetric analysis. A reagent, called the titrant or titrator is prepared as a standard solution. A known concentration and volume of titrant reacts with a solution of analyte or titrand to determine concentration. The volume of titrant reacted is called titration volume.

The word "titration" descends from the French word tiltre (1543), meaning the "proportion of gold or silver in coins or in works of gold or silver"; i.e., a measure of fineness or purity. Tiltre became titre, which thus came to mean the "fineness of alloyed gold", and then the "concentration of a substance in a given sample". In 1828, the French chemist Gay-Lussac first used titre as a verb (titrer), meaning "to determine the concentration of (a substance in a given sample)".

Volumetric analysis originated in late 18th-century France. François-Antoine-Henri Descroizilles () developed the first burette (which was similar to a graduated cylinder) in 1791.Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac developed an improved version of the burette that included a side arm, and coined the terms "pipette" and "burette" in an 1824 paper on the standardization of indigo solutions. The first true burette was invented in 1845 by the French chemist Étienne Ossian Henry (1798–1873). A major breakthrough in the methodology and popularization of volumetric analysis was due to Karl Friedrich Mohr, who redesigned the burette into a simple and convenient form, and who wrote the first textbook on the topic, Lehrbuch der chemisch-analytischen Titrirmethode (Textbook of analytical chemistry titration methods), published in 1855.

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