Advances in chelating exchange ion chromatography for the determination of trace metals using dye-coated columns

An ion chromatography system using chelating dye-coated columns for the determination of trace metals in high ionic strength media has been developed. A post-column spectrophotometric detection system was employed to investigate transition and alkaline earth metals. Initial investigations involved a study of the effect of eluent pH, with various metal ions, on different dyes and substrates. Later work concentrated on separation of metal ions using dye-coated high-performance substrates, and a comparison was made with a commercial chelating column. A number of metal ion separations in 1 mol dm-3potassium nitrate have been achieved under isocratic and gradient conditions.