Artificial seawater (

abbreviated An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word, usually ended with a trailing per ...

ASW) is a mixture of dissolved mineral salts (and sometimes

vitamin Vitamins are Organic compound, organic molecules (or a set of closely related molecules called vitamer, vitamers) that are essential to an organism in small quantities for proper metabolism, metabolic function. Nutrient#Essential nutrients, ...

s) that simulates

seawater Seawater, or sea water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has approximat ...

. Artificial seawater is primarily used in

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

and in marine and reef aquaria, and allows the easy preparation of

media Media may refer to: Communication * Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Interactive media, media that is inter ...

appropriate for marine

organism An organism is any life, living thing that functions as an individual. Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have be ...

s (including

algae Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthesis, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular ...

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

s and

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Biology, biological Kingdom (biology), kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, ...

s). From a scientific perspective, artificial seawater has the advantage of

reproducibility Reproducibility, closely related to replicability and repeatability, is a major principle underpinning the scientific method. For the findings of a study to be reproducible means that results obtained by an experiment or an observational study or ...

over natural seawater since it is a standardized formula. Artificial seawater is also known as synthetic seawater and substitute ocean water.

Example

The tables below present an example of an artificial seawater (35.00 ‰ of salinity) preparation devised by Kester, Duedall, Connors and Pytkowicz (1967). The recipe consists of two lists of mineral salts, the first of

anhydrous A substance is anhydrous if it contains no water. Many processes in chemistry can be impeded by the presence of water; therefore, it is important that water-free reagents and techniques are used. In practice, however, it is very difficult to achie ...

salts that can be weighed out, the second of hydrated salts that should be added to the artificial seawater as a solution. While all the compounds listed in the recipe above are

inorganic An inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds⁠that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as '' inorganic chemistry''. Inor ...

, mineral salts, some artificial seawater recipes, such as that of Goldman and McCarthy (1978), also add trace solutions of

s and organic compounds needed by marine organisms.

Standard

The International Standard for making artificial seawater can be found at

ASTM International ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is a standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical international standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems and s ...

. The current standard code is ASTM D1141-98 (the original standard was ASTM D1141-52) and describes the standard practice for the preparation of substitute ocean water. The ASTM D1141-98 standard is available in a ready-made artificial seawater form or as a "Sea Salt" mix that scientists and hobbyists can prepare. Generally, the ready-made artificial seawater comes in 1 gallon and 5 gallon containers, whereas the "Sea Salt" mix comes in 20 lb pails (makes approximately 57 gallons) and 50 lb pails (makes approximately 143 gallons).

Uses and applications

There are various applications for ASTM D1141-98 synthetic seawater including

corrosion Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engine ...

studies, ocean instrument calibration and chemical processing. Typically, laboratory-grade water is used for preparing synthetic seawater.

References

External links

Artificial seawater media
Goldman & McCarthy (1978)
Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa

Calypso Publications (1979) {{DEFAULTSORT:Artificial seawater Seaweeds Aquariums Aquatic ecology Biological oceanography Chemical oceanography Liquid water Marine biology Planktology

Example

Standard

Uses and applications

See also

References

External links