S. Strassburg et al., CONTAMINATION CAUSED BY ION-EXCHANGE RESIN - CONSEQUENCES FOR ULTRA-TRACE ANALYSIS, Fresenius' journal of analytical chemistry, 360(7-8), 1998, pp. 792-794
Well known sources of contamination are the laboratory environment, ve
ssels, reagents and handling of the sample. Attention is drawn to the
importance of cationic impurities included in the ion-exchangers used
for trace-matrix separations (TMS) at the sub-ng/g-level. The usual ri
nsing and conditioning of the resins does not remove all adhering meta
ls and thus leads to contaminated eluates in analytical work. High and
badly reproducible blanks are observed, in particular for Na, Mg, Al,
K, Cr, Fe, Zn and Ba. They are introduced during the polymerization p
rocess and are not ionically bound but obviously included in the polym
er matrix. Any time when another ''nest'' of inclusion is opened in th
e resin column by mechanical stress, the next irreproducible event of
contamination occurs.