A simple plant nutrient solution purification method for effective removal of trace metals using controlled pore glass-8-hydroxyquinoline chelation column chromatography.

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 (63)Ni and (65)Zn 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.