Chelating resin immobilized sawdust packed chromatographic column: Application to separation and preconcentration of lead ion

Abstract

Naturally abundant rubber sawdust has been utilized as a stationary support, which after immobilization with a chelating polyelectrolyte (xylenol orange as counterion) gets converted into a suitable column packing material for isolation and enrichment of trace level target analyte, accurately detectable by the technique of differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry. The sorbent is robust and re-usable in column-chromatography without showing any leaching and interference complications. Its unique lead ion selectivity from multielemental complex matrices (synthetic water sample, blood serum) at optimized column conditions (pH 2.5 and flow rate 0.5 mL min-1) mitigates the usual problems of intermetallic and readsorption effects. Effects of flow rate, pH, equilibration time, and other variables are reported. The system has advantageous feature to be used in a single-column ion chromatography with satisfactory performance. A modest attempt has been made to determine lead fractions in human blood serum samples on the bases of selective retention of ionic and labile fractions on complexing resin. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd.