Simultaneous determination of aluminium, aluminium fluoride complexes and iron in groundwater samples by new HPLC–UVVIS method

Abstract

The paper presents the application of the new HPLC–UVVIS method used in speciation analysis of aluminium form Al3+, aluminium complexes with fluorides and iron in groundwater samples. Based on the obtained results of groundwater samples analysis, the separation of iron in the retention time ≈3.7, was obtained. The conditions of the occurrence of particular aluminium forms based on the speciation analysis and modeling in the Mineql program were presented and confirmed. The influence of pH and ligand concentration on forming complexes was shown. The preliminary study of aluminium complexes with sulfates based on model solutions did not allow for the separation of the above complexes in presented analytical system. The paper presents the possible types of transformation of aluminium hydroxy forms and aluminium sulfate complexes by the reaction of the sample with mobile phase. An indirect method for the determination of aluminium in the form of aluminium sulfate was proposed. The new method was successfully applied in the determination of the following aluminium forms: Al3+, AlF2+, AlF30, AlF4−, AlF2+ and Fe3+.