A Comparative Study on Characterization of Aluminium Tungstate and Surfactant-Based Aluminium Tungstate Cation-Exchangers: Analytical Applications for the Separation of Toxic Metal Ions.

Two cation-exchange materials, aluminium tungstate (AT) and sodium dodecyl sulphate-aluminium tungstate (SDS-AT), were synthesized. Both samples were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis and scanning electron microscopy. The distribution coefficients for various metal ions on SDS-AT cation-exchange material were performed in different solvent systems. On the basis of distribution coefficient values, the SDS-AT cation-exchange material was found to be selective for the very toxic metal ion, Cr. The hybrid cation-exchange material offered a variety of technological opportunities for quantitative determination and separation of Cr from synthetic mixtures of metal ions. Some binary and ternary separations of metal ions; viz., Cd-Cr, Zn-Cr, Cu-Cr, Pb-Cr, Mg-Pb-Cr and Mg-Cd-Cr, were performed using a packed column of this material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]