Abstract
Ethanol fractionation of colloidal organic fibrils can provide a highly purified fraction in appropriate quantities for standard chemical analyses of fibril structure and function. Using a sequential ethanol precipitation procedure, applied to lacustrine fibrils isolated and concentrated by physical separation techniques, we obtained a fibril fraction (approximately 60% yield). Its characteristics were as follows: (1) absence of any major category of colloidal impurity detectable by transmission electron microscopy, (2) relative freedom from fibrils of atypical morphology, (3) relative freedom from a class of small granules, typically associated with lacustrine fibrils and with some other kinds of polyanionic fibrillar colloids found in nature, (4) freedom from derivatization reactions, and (5) freedom from an undesirable exposure to caustic reagents. Our objective was to arrive at a nondegradative fractionation procedure that yielded a fraction relatively free of other colloidal components found in lake water. This fraction would then be appropriate for assays of heavy metal binding and bioavailability.
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