Separation of Lead, Cadmium, and Iron in Analyses of Soil Samples

Abstract

The conditions of sorption of chloride complexes of Pb2+, Cd2+, Fe2+, and Fe3+ ions from media of hydrochloric acid have been studied with a strongly basic anion exchanger - Ostion LG AT. The experiments used an exchanger microcolumn connected with atomic absorption spectrometer as a selective detector of metal ions. From the relation found between retention of the ions studied and hydrochloric acid concentration, conditions of separation have been suggested and used for separations of small amounts of lead and cadmium from many times higher amounts of iron and aluminium in soil extract before determination of both the foreign metals by means of AAS method. The yield of separation exceeded 95%.