Preparative separation of arsenate from phosphate by IRA-400 (OH) for oxygen isotopic work

The paper reports about a series of tests carried out to find out the optimal conditions for the preparative separation of arsenate and phosphate from natural waters, using the anion exchange resin Amberlite IRA-400 (OH). Freundlich isotherms have been constructed on basis of data obtained by stirring different amounts of resin (0.05–1.00 g) with solutions containing 1 mg/L As and 10 mg/L P in form of arsenate and phosphate and the effect of pH and P/As ratio on adsorption was investigated. It was found that at these concentrations 0.5 g of IRA-400 (OH) can adsorb quantitatively arsenate and phosphate within 1 h. In a range of 3.6–11.1, pH seems to have no influence on the adsorption behavior of the resin, but at pH 1.5 the adsorption of both arsenate and phosphate drops to values close to zero. Experiments with solutions with P/As ratios in a range between 1 and 30 have shown that the concentration ratios have also little effect on adsorption. An efficient selective desorption of the anions could be achieved with 2 mol/L HNO3 or HCl, but the use of HCl is impracticable if the separation aims at precipitating arsenate for oxygen isotopic work. The reported adsorption/ desorption properties of the resin are supported also by data obtained by investigating the resin particles with a scanning electron microscope equipped with a fluorescence detection device.