Ion chromatographic determination of trace amounts of aluminium with on-line preconcentration and spectrophotometric detection

Trace amounts of aluminium in aqueous samples can be determined by ion chromatography using ammonium sulphate-nitric acid as eluent and pyrocatechol violet as post-column chromogenic reagent. The detection limit for a 50-μl sample is 10 μg 1^?1. Preconcentration of the sample (obtained by replacing the sampling loop with a short ion-exchange column) allows larger amounts of sample to be loaded and lowers the detection limit below 1 μg 1^?1.