CuSO4-TiO2 as Kjeldahl digestion catalyst in manual determination of crude protein in animal feeds.

The official AOAC manual Kjeldahl methods for determining crude protein in animal feeds have several disadvantages. For the HgO catalyst method, there are environmental concerns and a lengthy digestion. For the CuSO4 catalyst method, the digestion period is shorter, but still 90 min. A different catalyst combination, CuSO4-TiO2, makes 40 min digestion feasible. Comparison of these catalysts on a group of representative feeds resulted in a mean difference, Cu-Ti minus HgO, of 0.034% protein. Standard deviation of the differences was 0.36. A Student's t-test showed no significant difference. The method will be collaboratively studied.