Tartrazine aluminum lakes with four levels of the dye anion content ranging from 28 to 37.5% were prepared using a substrate of aluminum hydroxide gel precipitated under a well-defined condition, and the effect of dye anion content was examined on the dye elution in NaCl aqueous solution. The limiting capacity of the substrate to combine the dye was found at the content of about 35%, and the four specimens corresponded to the four stages of dye saturation : unsaturated, transient from unsaturated to saturated, saturated and supersaturated, respectively. Dye elution curves characteristic of the four stages were obtained by measuring the concentration of eluted dye anion [
D]
s as a function of the lake/solution ratio
Wp and time. The change of [
D]
s with
Wp was in the reverse order only in the unsaturated case, wherea in the other three cases [
D]
s increased in keeping with
Wp. The time-dependence of [
D]
s was different in the four cases as follows : (1) for the unsaturated, [
D]
s decreased with elapse of time, (2) for the transient, [
D]
s increased in the initial stage and then turned to decrease giving a maximum, and (3) for the saturated and the supersaturated, [
D]
s increased in the whole span of measurement.
The phenomenon observed in the unsaturated case resembled that of the equilibrium-attaining process in the ion exchange resin where the diffusion of counter ions within the ion exchange particle is rate-determining, These findings indicated thepossibility to improve the anti-eluting strength of aluminum lakes.
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