Chemical Speciation of Trace Metals in Natural Water by Ultrafiltration/Size Exclusion Chromatography/UV Absorption/ICP-MS

A study on elemental speciation of trace metals in lake water (Lake Biwa in Japan) has been carried out by a size exclusion chromatography (SEC) / inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) system. Before analysis, the water sample was preconcentrated with a ultrafiltration technique, where the large molecules with molecular weight larger than 10,000 were concentrated. Then the preconcentrated water samples (500-1000 fold) were analyzed by a SEC/ICP-MS system. Most trace metals were found at the UV absorption peaks corresponding to the molecular weights of ca. 300,000 and 10,000-50,000, where trace metals were on-line detected by ICP-MS. The results suggest that many of trace metals exist as the large organic molecules-metal complexes in natural water.