The metals, Hg, Bi, Zn, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Pb, Sn and Cd, in water were extracted and separated at pH 3.0 and pH 9.0 with dithizone-chloroform solution. Each extracted solution was concentrated on the water bath and then back-extracted with 0.5 ml of 10 N-nitric acid. The separation and identification of metallic ions in the nitric acid solution were performed with thin layer chromatography using two kinds of developing solvents, that is, acetone : 3N-HCl (99 : 1) and n-butanol : benzene : 1N-HNO
3 : 1N-HCl (50 : 46 : 2.7 : 1.3). The metals extracted at pH 3.0 were Hg, Bi, Cu, Zn, Sn and at pH 9.0 were Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cd, Pb, Zn, Sn. The excess of Fe
3+ gave the interference in dithizone-extraction, but did not when NH
2OH·HCl was added. The anions, PO
3-4, BO
3-3, Cl-, C
2O
2-4, SO
2-4 and S
2O
2-3, did not interfer in dithizone-extraction up to 100ppm. The sensitivity of this method was about 0.5ppm of each metal.
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