IC I-524A

Water quality control in aquariums is very important for our oceanarium. We use IC I-524A with phthalic acid eluent and non-suppressed conductivity mode for the routine analysis of fresh water samples to determine Cl-, NO2-, Br-, NO3- and SO42-. Unfourtunately, TRIS, component of the eluent promotes biological fouling of the suction filter. Furthermore, the column is unsuitable to separate F- and PO42- when the sample contains both. In order to solve this problem we use column for anions analysis with suppressor type ion chromatography system. The advantages of this column are the stability of its operation, the cheapness of the reagents for the eluent. In addition, the eluent can be easily prepared from a concentrate 180 mM Na2CO3 + 170mM NaHCO3 that can be stored for a long time in a refrigerator. For example, 1 liter of the concentrate provides us with an eluent for 3 months. Determination of nitrogen species in seawater aquariums is a complex task. We were able to solve this problem by applying IC SI-90 4E column to separate NO2-, Br-and NO3- from sea water’s complex matrix and recording signal with PDA detector. Injection volume of undiluted sea water is 2µl. the eluent consisted of 12 mM NaHCO3 +0.36 mM Na2CO3. Column with methanesulfonic acid eluent is used for simultaneous separation of monovalent and divalent cations Li+, Na+, NH4+, K+, Mg2+ and Ca2+. Tracking the level of ammonium is vital for hydrobionts. Successfully YS-50 are suitable for analysis of NH4+ at a high concentration of Na+, such as sea water diluted 100 times. Corals are very sensitive to the content of calcium and magnesium. We track Mg2+ and Ca2+ with YS-50. We acieved high quality and reproducible results with these columns. Eluents for SI-90 4E and YS-50 resistant to storage, easy to prepare and quite cheap. Excellent reproducibility of retention time and peak area make these columns indispensable in our work.

Review Date: 25 Feb 2018 | Showa Denko K.K.