Blood substitute. as noted in this chapter, blood contains a total concentration of phosphate of approximately 1 mm and typically has a ph of 7.4. you wish to make 100 liters of phosphate buffer with a ph of 7.4 from nah 2 po 4 (molecular weight, 119. 98 g mol 1) and na 2 hpo 4 (molecular weight, 141. 96 g mol 1). how much of each (in grams) do you need? berg, jeremy m.. biochemistry (p. 25). w. h. freeman. kindle edition.

Explanation:

The equilibrium relevant for this problem is:

H₂PO₄⁻ ↔ HPO₄⁻² + H⁺

The Henderson–Hasselbalch (H-H) equation is needed to solve this problem:

pH= pka +

In this case, [A⁻] = [HPO₄⁻²], [HA] = [H₂PO₄⁻], pH = 7.4; from literature we know that pka=7.21.

We use the H-H equation to describe [HPO₄⁻²] in terms of  [H₂PO₄⁻]:

The problem tells us that the concentration of phosphate is 1 mM, which means:

[HPO₄⁻²] + [H₂PO₄⁻] = 1 mM = 0.001 M

In this equation we can replace [HPO₄⁻²] with the term expressed in the H-H eq:

1.549 * [H₂PO₄⁻] + [H₂PO₄⁻] = 0.001 M

2.549 * [H₂PO₄⁻] = 0.001 M

[H₂PO₄⁻] = 3.923 * 10⁻⁴ M

With the value of [H₂PO₄⁻] we can calculate [HPO₄⁻²]:

[HPO₄⁻²] + 3.923 * 10⁻⁴ M = 0.001 M

[HPO₄⁻²] = 6.077 * 10⁻⁴ M

With the concentrations, the molecular weight, and the volume, we calculate the mass of each reagent: