Extraction chromatography of aluminium(III) and mutual separation of aluminium(III) , gallium(III) , indium(III) and thallium(III) with <I>N</I>-<I>n</I>-octylaniline

Abstract

A selective method has been developed for the extraction chromatography of aluminium (III) and its separation from several metal ions with a chromatographic column containing N-n-octylaniline (a liquid anion exchanger) coated on silanized silica gel as a stationary phase. The aluminium (III) was quantitatively extracted with the 0.065 mol/L N-n-octylaniline in 0.013 to 0.05 mol/L sodium succinate at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The extracted metal ion has been recovered by eluting with 25.0 mL of 0.05 mol/L hydrochloric acid and estimated spectrophotometrically with aurintricarboxylic acid. The effects of the acid concentration, the reagent concentration, the flow rate and the eluting agents have been investigated. The log-log plots of distribution coefficient (Kd (Al (III))) versus N-n-octylaniline concentration in 0. 005 and 0. 007 mol/L sodium succinate gave the slopes of 0.5 and 0.7 respectively and showed the probable composition of the extracted species was 1:1 (metal to amine ratio) and the nature of extracted species was [RR'NH2(+), Al succinate2(-)]org. The extraction of aluminium(III) was carried out in the presence of various ions to ascertain the tolerance limit of individual ions. Aluminium(III) has been separated from multicomponent mixtures, pharmaceutical samples and synthetic mixtures corresponding to alloys. A scheme for mutual separation of aluminium (III), indium (III), gallium (III) and thallium (III) has been developed by using suitable masking agents. The method is fast, accurate and precise.