Separation and determination of traces of heavy metals complexed with humic substances in river waters by sorption on indium-treated amberlite xad-2 resin

A nonionic macroreticular styrene/divnylbenzene copolymer, Amberlite XAD-2 resin is pulverized to 1–10 μm and treated with indium ions to saturate traced of cation exchange sites for the quantitative separation of humic complexes from cations. A 100-ml filtered sample is passed through an indium-treated XAD-2 column (16 diameter, 5 mm tall) at pH 5 at a flow rate of 2 ml min^? to sorb heavy metals complexed with humic and fulvic acids. Inorganic cations and anions, EDTA complexes and colloidal hydrated iron(III) oxide are not retained on the column at all. The heavy metals sorbed on the column are then ultrasonically desorbed with 0.5 M nitric acid and determined by graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. The results fo two river water samples obtained are in good agreement with those obtained when the macroreticular weak-base anion-exchanger DEAE-Sephadex A-25 is used.