Isolation of organic acids from large volumes of water by adsorption chromatography

The concentrations of dissolved organic carbon from most natural waters ranges from 1 to 20 milligrams carbon per liter, of which approximately 75 percent are organic acids. These acids can be chromatographically fractionated into hydrophobic organic acids, such as humic substances, and hydrophilic organic acids. To effectively study any of these organic acids, they must be isolated from other organic and inorganic species, and concentrated. Usually, large volumes of water must be processed to obtain sufficient quantities of material, and adsorption chromatography on synthetic, macroporous resins has proven to be a particularly effective method for this purpose. The use of the nonionic Amberlite XAD-8 and Amberlite XAD-4 resins and the anion exchange resin Duolite A-7 for isolating and concentrating organic acids from water is presented.