A method for measuring the percentage of nitrogen in an organic compound. The compound is boiled with concentrated sulphuric acid and copper(II) sulphate catalyst to convert any nitrogen to ammonium sulphate. Alkali is added and the mixture heated to distil off ammonia. This is passed into a standard acid solution, and the amount of ammonia can then be found by estimating the amount of unreacted acid by titration. The amount of nitrogen in the original specimen can then be calculated. The method was developed by the Danish chemist Johan Kjeldahl (1849–1900) in 1883.