Hichung Moon

Investigation of Metal Binding Sites on Soil Fulvic Acid Using Eu(III) Luminescence Spectroscopy.

The [sup 7]F[sub 0] [yields] [sup 5]D[sub 0] excitation spectra of Eu(III) complexed with soil fulvic acid (FA) were acquired over a range of solution pH (2.9-7.8) and FA concentrations (800-3200 mg L[sup [minus]1]) using a pulsed tunable dye laser system. The broad asymmetric excitation spectra were well-fitted to a sum of two conventional Lorentzian-shaped curves, revealing the existence of two types of carboxylate moieties for the binding of metal ions on FA which formed 1:1 (EuL[sup 2+]; L = carboxylate) and 1:2 complexes (EuL[sub 2][sup +]). The weaker binding species, EuL[sup 2+], seemed to be quite abundant and showed a rapid increase as the pH was raised from 2.9 to 6.3, but it was susceptible to hydrolysis at pH higher than 7 while the stronger binding species, EuL[sub 2][sup +], showed only a modest growth with an increase in pH. By contrast, on a more flexible synthetic linear polymer, poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and poly(vinylbenzoic acid) (PVBA) as model polymers, EuL[sub 2][sup +] was seen as the dominant species except in acidic media. 28 refs., 10 figs., 3 tabs.

BIMODAL NORMAL DISTRIBUTION MODEL FOR BINDING OF TRIVALENT EUROPIUM BY SOIL FULVIC ACID

Complexation of trivalent europium by a well characterized soil fulvic acid was investigated by equilibrium dialysis titration method ([FA]=24 mg·dm−3, [Eu]t=9.0·10−7−3.5·10−6 mol·dm−3, pH 6.0). The concentrations of the fulvate bound and free europium were measured radiometrically using152Eu as a tracer. The experimental results were evaluated using a bimodal normal distribution model and a plot with two overlapping normal distributions was obtained which gave two means logK (µI=7.0, σI=1.1; µII=4.9, σII=0.5) values for binding of europium by two classes of sites in fulvic acid. A multiligand model was assumed for fulvic acid, based upon the Eu(III) luminescence studies (7F0→5D0 excitation) on many organic acids as model ligands.

Complexation of Eu3+ and Am3+ with soil humic acid extracted from Okchon Basin of Korean Peninsula

The complexation of Eu3+ and Am3+ ions with the humic acids has been investigated at various pH (4.0, 4.5, 5.0, 5.4) in 0.1M NaClO4 solution using solvent extraction technique. Two humic acids are used in this study: humic acid extracted from the soil of Taejon on the Okchon Basin of Korea (TJHA) and commercially available one from Aldrich Chemical Co. (AHA). The total carboxylate group concentrations were determined to be 3.58 meq/g and 4.59 meq/g for Taejon and Aldrich humic acids, respectively. The conditional stability constants (log β1 and log β2), dependent on the pH of the solution, of the complexes of Eu3+ and Am3+ ions with the humic acids have been determined at the ionic medium of 0.1M NaClO4. The values of stability constants with the degree of ionization α of TJHA for Eu and Am complexes are quite well agreed with those of Lake Bradford humic acid (LBHA), indicating that structural characteristics of TJHA and LBHA may be quite similar to one another.