Devarda's alloy (CAS # 8049-11-4), is an alloy of aluminium (44% – 46%), copper (49% – 51%) and zinc (4% – 6%).
Devarda's alloy is used as reducing agent in analytical chemistry for the determination of nitrates after their reduction to ammonia under alkaline conditions. It owes its name to the Italian chemist Arturo Devarda (1859–1944), who synthezised it at the end of the 19th century to develop a new method to analyze nitrate in Chile saltpeter.
It was often used in the quantitative or qualitative analysis of nitrates in agriculture and soil science before the development of ion chromatography, the predominant analysis method largely adopted worldwide today.
Read more about Devarda's Alloy: General Mechanism, Distinction Between NO3− and NO2− With Spot Tests, Similarity With The Marsh Test, Long-debated Question of The Nascent Hydrogen
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“I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)