On the Use of Radionuclides in the Study of Behaviour and Physico-chemical State of Trace Elements in Natural Waters

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Abstract
The applicability of radionuclides for the analysis of the physico-chemical state and behaviour of trace elements in natural waters was studied with six radionuclides in two typical river water Adsorption, ion exchange filtration, centrifugation, dialysis and electrophoresis of Ba, Fe, Sc, Zn, Mn and Cr in river water were investigated by a radiotracer method and by instrumental activation analysis. God correspondence between the results by both methods was obtained only when the radionuclide and corresponding natural element existed predominantly as simple cations at the beginning of experiment. In the other cases, considerable differences in the behaviour of the radiotracer and its stable counterpart were found even after 35 days of equilibration. Very slow isotope exchange was observed particularly with colloidal or organically complexed forms of the natural trace elements. The analysis of the state of trace elements may be further complicated by a change of this state during the time necessary for isotope equilibration. Thus, the radio-tracer method has serious limitations in this field.