Speciation of trace amounts of aluminium in percolating water of forest soil by online coupling HPLC-ICP-MS

• DOI: 10.1007/s002160051367
• Publication Date: 2002-08-25T07:47:25Z
• Authors: A. Hils; M. Grote; E. Janßen; J. Eichhorn
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 6. Clean water; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

Procedures were developed for the speciation of trace amounts of aluminium present in percolating water of forest soil by online coupling of different chromatographic separation methods to an ICP-MS detection system. Inorganic and organic aluminium species were fractionated on a cation exchange column IONPAC CG12 (10-32). Phytotoxic polymeric aluminium hydroxides, as e.g. Al13 (AlO4Al12(OH)24(H2O)127+), were determined using pyrocatechol violet (PCV) as a species dependant complexing reagent prior to the cation exchange step. Size fractionation of the organic aluminium species was obtained by size exclusion chromatography using the columns Superdex-75-HR 10/30 and Superdex-Peptide-HR 10/30. Validation of the speciation procedures proved that online coupling HPLC to the element selective and sensitive ICP-MS detection system leads to low detection limits of 0.3–0.6 μg/L and high precision and reproducibility (1.2–3.5%) of the speciation procedures. Speciation data determined for aluminium in a percolating water of the Zierenberg catchment are given.