Approach combining on-line metal exchange and tangential-flow ultrafiltration for in-situ characterization of metal species in humic hydrocolloids.

This paper deals with the development and optimization of an analytical procedure using ultrafiltration and a flow-injection system, and its application in in-situ experiments to characterize the lability and availability of metal species in humic-rich hydrocolloids. The on-line system consists of a tangential flow ultrafiltration device equipped with a 3-kDa filtration membrane. The concentration of free ions in the filtrate was determined by atomic-absorption spectrometry, assuming that metals not complexed by aquatic humic substances (AHS) were separated from the complexed species (M-AHS) retained by the membrane.

Reduction of mercury(II) by tropical river humic substances (Rio Negro)-Part II. Influence of structural features (molecular size, aromaticity, phenolic groups, organically bound sulfur).

The influence of structural features of tropical river humic substances (HS) on their capability to reduce mercury(II) in aqueous solutions was studied. The HS investigated were conventionally isolated from Rio Negro water-Amazonas State/Brazil by means of the collector XAD 8. In addition, the isolated HS were on-line fractionated by tangential-flow multistage ultrafiltration (nominal molecular-weight cut-offs: 100, 50, 30, 10, 5 kDa) and characterized by potentiometry and UV/VIS spectroscopy.

Extraction and exchange behavior of metal species in therapeutically applied peat.

The binding and availability of metals (Al, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn) in therapeutically applied peat (Grosses Gifhorner Moor, Sassenburg/North Germany) was characterized by means of a versatile extraction approach. Aqueous extracts of peat were obtained by a standardized batch equilibrium procedure using high-purity water (pH 4.5 and 5.

Investigations on the conditional kinetic and thermodynamic stability of aquatic humic substance-metal complexes by means of EDTA exchange, ultrafiltration and atomic spectrometry.

The conditional metal availability and the kinetic stability of humic substance-metal species in humic-rich waters (e.g. bog water) was characterized by means of EDTA exchange.

Ultrafiltration and determination of Zn- and Cu-humic substances complexes stability constants.

This study exhibits that size fractionation of humic substances (HS) and their metal complexes by ultrafiltration is an efficient procedure for simultaneous determination of stability constants. Using sequential-stage ultrafiltration and a radiotracer technique the HS-Cu and HS-Zn complexes studied can gently be size-fractionated and their free metal fractions simply be discriminated. The conditional stability constants Ki obtained for size fractions of these HS metal complexes exhibit a clear molecular size dependence.