Ion behavior in plant cell walls. II. Measurement of the Donnan free space, anion-exclusion space, anion-exchange capacity, and cation-exchange capacity in delignified Sphagnum russowii cell walls

Abstract

Isolated delignified cell walls from Sphagnum russowii Warnsdorf were incubated in various chloride salt solutions at neutral pH (pH 7 – 8), and ion sorption was measured directly by neutron activation analysis. The anion-exchange capacity was estimated to be 63 – 66 μequiv./g dry weight of wall material in the protonated form. The volume of the anion-exclusion space was 2.63 ± 0.21 (± SD, n = 3) and 1.65 ± 0.35 (± SD, n = 2) mL/g dry weight in NaCl and CaCl2, respectively. A novel approach to measure the Donnan free space is proposed: for walls equilibrated in a salt mixture containing 10 mequiv./L NaCl and 10 mequiv./L CaCl2, the Na+ ions can be considered "uncondensed" in the Manning sense. From the Donnan relationship for Na+ and Cl− ions in the internal and external phases, the Donnan free space was calculated to be 1.77 mL/g dry weight. Titrating walls from pH 2.1 to 9.1 in the presence of 10 mequiv./L NaCl and 10 mequiv./L CaCl2 revealed a maximum cation-exchange capacity above pH 6 of ca. 1900 μequiv./g dry weight. This corresponds to a fixed anionic charge concentration in the Donnan free space of 1.1 M. Key words: ion exchange, cell wall, Donnan free space.