A Simple Plant Nutrient Solution Purification Method for Effective Removal of Trace Metals Using Controlled Pore Glass-8-Hydroxyquinoline Chelation Column Chromatography

Abstract
Column chelation chromatography on controlled pore glass-8-hydroxyquinoline was demonstrated to be a very efficient method for removing trace metal contaminants from concentrated macronutrient salt solutions used to prepare nutrient media. By using 63Ni and 65Zn radio-isotopes as tracers, controlled pore glass-8-hydroxyquinoline column packings were found to retain 99.9% of the radiotracer and quantitative recovery of the radioisotopes from these columns was obtained by eluting with 1.2 n HCl. This method has several advantages over liquid-liquid extraction methods of purification which previously have been used in plant micronutrient research.