Artificial shellfish for the extraction and determination of transition metals in aqueous solution

A chelate-ion exchange matrix has been successfully sandwiched between membrane filters to construct physical-chemical analogs which resemble living membranes in their adsorptive capacity of transition metals. The fabricated disc (Metro-Disc*) selectively adsorbs and concentrates metallic ions by a factor up to 1000 over the ambient background concentration in aqueous solution. Combined with multi- channel emission spectrophotometry, the Metro- Disc offers rapid determination of microgram/kg quantities of Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺, Pb²⁺, Zn²⁺, and Cr⁶⁺, in water.