It is of importance to study the behaviour of carbonic acid substances dissolved in natural water in order to know the chemical properties of the water. Acidity or alkalinity method has been generally used for this purpose for a long time. But this method often leads to erroneous results.
The present auth or proposed that a better way is to determine first the amount of total carbonic acid, pH and temperature, and then to calculate theoretically the amount of H₂CO₃, HCO₃^- and CO₃^- using equilibrium constants between them.
However, such a calculation is too laborious for every analyst, and therefore the author completed tables convenient for use containing calculated values of molar fractions of each carbonic acid substance for different temperature and pH in fresh water and sea water. In these tables, one can find any necessary values of molar fraction when the total amount of carbonic acid, temperature and pH of waters are given. By the use of this method, exact determination of the amount of each carbonic acid substance in water is made possible.