Separation and determination of various elements by cation-exchange chromatography with sodium trimetaphosphate as the eluent

Sodium trimetaphosphate was investigated as a new elution agent for the cat ion-exchange separation of some metal ions. Cation-exchange equilibrium dis tribution coefficients with Dowex 50W-X8, 200-400 mesh, a sulfonated polyst yrene resin, are presented for twelve elements in different concentration r anges between 0.01 M and 0.3 M sodium trimetaphosphate. By considering thes e distribution coefficients, the separation of twelve metal ions has been p erformed with 0.1 M sodium trimetaphosphate at room temperature. It was app lied as a small scale (0.5 mg of each element) and large scale (0.5 mmol of each element). It has been seen that this separation can be used for the d etermination and preparative separation of the metal ions. As an elution ag ent sodium trimetaphosphate has the following advantages over the other elu tion agents. The elution peaks are narrow and nearly symmetrical. The taili ng effects are very small and separation time is shorter than those of othe r known methods. Qualitative and quantitative determination of eluted ions were performed by spectrofluorimetry. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Scienc e BN. All rights reserved.