Determination of ion exchange constants for pairs of metal ions to lignocellulosic materials by column chromatography

A method based on column chromatography has been developed for determination of ion exchange (IE) constants for pairs of metal ions for different types of wood, pulp, and bark samples. Bark was found to have higher selectivity than wood and pulp for the metal ions studied. Of the 14 different metal ions studied, the toxic transition metal ions Pb, Cu, and Cd were most strongly bound to all the materials used in this work. The validity of the column method was tested by means of different mixtures of metal ions as the loading solution. The IE constants obtained by the column method showed a good agreement with those obtained by the batch method reported earlier by our group. The IE constants were also determined for synthetic cation exchanger (CE) based on weak and strong acid groups. The IE constants of most pairs of metal ions are highest for the weakly acidic CE followed by bark, wood, pulp, and strongly acidic CE.