Determination of the free-ion concentration of rare earth elements by an ion-exchange technique: implementation, evaluation and limits.

An ion-exchange technique that employs a polystyrene sulphonate ion-exchange resin was developed for determining environmentally relevant free-ion concentrations of Ce, Eu,Laand Nd. Owingto the high affinity of rare earth elements (REE) for the selected resin, this method requires the addition of an inert salt to increase the concentration of the counter-ions (i.e. cations that are exchanged with REE bound to the resin). The use of a batch equilibration approach to calibrate the resin allowed the implementation of the ion-exchange technique at reasonably low ionic strength (I = 0.1 M). Several ligands were used to test the selectivity of the method, which proved to be highly selective for the free metal ion in presence of the tested cationic and anionic complexes (REE-nitrate, REE-malic acid and REE-nitrilotriacetic acid systems) and operational for very low proportions of REE³⁺, owing to the strong REE-resin interactions. The ion-exchange technique was also implemented to determine [Eu]_inorg in the presence of natural humic matter (Suwannee River Humic Acid) and the results were compared with those obtained using equilibrium dialysis and those calculated with chemical equilibrium models. At pH 4.00, the measured [Eu]_inorg values were in fairly good agreement with those predicted with the Windermere Humic Aqueous Model and Stockholm Humic Model, whereas the Non-Ideal Competitive Absorption model appeared to underestimate the [Eu]_inorg. However, the inorganic europium concentrations were strongly underestimated (4 , [Eu]_{inorg, IET}/[Eu]_{inorg, calc}<18) with the three prediction models at higher pH (5.3 and 6.2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]