Chinese Journal of Chromatography ›› 2012, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (04): 365-368.DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1123.2011.12050

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Development and Application of Advanced Ion Chromatography for Water Quality Monitoring

Nobutake Nakatani1,Daisuke Kozaki2,Kazuhiko Tanaka2   

  1. 1 Department of Environmental and Symbiotic Science, College of Agriculture, Food and Environment Sciences, Rakuno Gakuen University, 582 Bunkyodai-Midorimachi, Ebetsu, Hokkaido 069-8501; 2 Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University, 1-5-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8529, Japan
  • Received:2011-12-19 Revised:2012-02-13 Online:2012-04-28 Published:2012-04-28

Abstract: In this study, recent our work on advanced ion chromatographic methods for the simultaneous determination of inorganic ionic species such as common anions (SO42-, Cl- and NO3-) and cations (Na+, NH4+, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+), nutrients (phosphate and silicate) and hydrogen ion/alkalinity were summarized first. Then, the applications using these methods for monitoring of environmental water quality were also presented. For the determination of common anions and cations with nutrients, the separation was successfully performed by a polymethacrylate-based weakly acidic cation-exchange column of TSKgel Super IC-A/C (Tosoh, 150 mm × 6.0 mm i.d.) and a mixture solution of 100 mM ascorbic acid and 4 mM 18-crown-6 as an acidic eluent with dual detection of conductivity and spectrophotometry. For the determination of hydrogen ion/ acidity, the separation was conducted by TSKgel ODS-100Z column (Tosoh, 150 mm × 4.5 mm i.d.) modified with lithium dodecylsulfate and an eluent of 40 mM LiCl/0.1 mM lithium dodecylsulfate/0.05 mM H2SO4 with conductivity detectoe. The differences of ion concentration between in untreated and treated wastewater showed the variation of ionic species during biological treatment process in a sewage treatment plant. Occurrence and distribution of water-quality conditions were related to the bioavailability and human activity in watershed. From these results, our advanced ion chromatographic methods have contributed significantly for water quality monitoring of environmental waters.

Key words: anions and cations, hydrogen ion/alkalinity, nutrients, river water, wastewater, water quality monitoring, advanced ion chromatography