3P-27 PDF
Development of rapid and quantitative nickel purification technique by three step ion chromatography from geological samples
Nickel is one of heavy metals and anthropogenic addition of nickel into environment affects the ecosystem. Therefore, precise understanding of cycles of nickel in Earth’s crust is an important theme. As an isotope marker, minute variation in nickel isotopic composition is used for understanding cycles of nickel. For this purpose, nickel isolation is required to detect isotopic variations of nickel by high accuracy analysis of nickel isotope ratio. However, quantitative recovery of nickel from geological samples is not easy because of complicated major components in geological samples. In this study, removing of major elements and Zn, Cu was processed by a three-step ion chromatography. In the step1, Fe and Ti were eliminated by ammonium fluoride buffer on a cationic exchange resin. In the step2, alkali metals and alkali earth metals were removed by ammonium acetate buffer on a chelating resin. In the step3, nickel was isolated from other transition metals by HCl on an anionic exchange resin. This three step chromatography was applied to geological reference material, JB-3, and resultant nickel recovery was quantitative. The time required for all procedure was three days and this was rapid compared to the conventional methods.