ion-exchange reaction

ion-exchange reaction

Introduction

      any of a class of chemical reactions between two substances (each consisting of positively and negatively charged species called ions (ion)) that involves an exchange of one or more ionic components.

      Ions are atoms, or groups of atoms, that bear a positive or negative electric charge. In pairs or other multiples they make up the substance of many crystalline materials, including table salt. When such an ionic substance is dissolved in water, the ions are freed—to a considerable extent—from the restraints that hold them within the rigid array of the crystal, and they move about in the solution with relative freedom. Certain insoluble materials bearing positive or negative charges on their surfaces react with ionic solutions to remove various ions selectively, replacing them with ions of other kinds. Such processes are called ion-exchange reactions. They are used in a variety of ways to remove ions from solution and to separate ions of various kinds from one another. Such separations are widely utilized in the scientific laboratory to effect purifications and to aid in the analysis of unknown mixtures. Ion-exchange materials such as zeolites are also employed commercially to purify water (among other uses) and medically to serve as artificial kidneys and for other purposes.

Early history
      Surprisingly, recognition of ion-exchange processes antedates the great Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius (Arrhenius, Svante August), who formulated the ionic theory. In 1850, nine years before Arrhenius was born, separate papers appeared in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England by agriculturist Sir H.S.M. Thompson and chemist J.T. Way, describing the phenomenon of ion exchange as it occurs in soils. In his paper, entitled “On the Power of Soils to Absorb Manure,” Way addressed himself to the question of how soluble fertilizers (fertilizer) like potassium chloride were retained by soils (soil) even after heavy rains. Way took a box with a hole in the bottom, filled it with soil, and poured onto the soil a solution of potassium chloride, collecting the liquid that flowed out of the bottom. He then washed the soil with rainwater and analyzed the water he had collected, from both the solution and the rainwater. The water turned out to contain all of the chloride that had been originally added but none of the potassium; the potassium had been replaced by chemically equivalent amounts of magnesium and calcium. Way called the process “base exchange” because of the basic (nonacidic) character of the exchanged elements. That term persisted until after 1940, by which time the process had become universally known as ion exchange.

      In modern parlance, the process would be described in the following way: potassium ions enter the soil and displace calcium and magnesium ions. The chloride ions have no part in the operation and pass through unchanged. In terms of a chemical equation, the process is 2K+ + Ca2+(soil) ⇌ Ca2+ + 2K+(soil), in which the double arrow indicates that the exchange is reversible. In Way's experiment, the process was pushed to completion (that is, the equilibrium was pushed to the right) because the water trickling through the soil continually came in contact with fresh calcium-loaded soil. As Way also observed, the potassium could be regained by washing the soil with a solution of calcium chloride (which pushed the equilibrium in the opposite direction).

Ion-exchange materials
      Soil is able to bind positive ions (like K+ and Ca2+) because it contains clay minerals and organic humic acids. Both of those substances are insoluble materials that carry, as a part of their molecular (molecule) framework, negatively charged ionic groups. In clays, for instance, such groups are the ends of silicon–oxygen chains—either oxygen atoms that carry an extra electron because they are bonded to only one atom instead of the usual two or aluminum atoms bonded to four oxygens instead of the usual three. The following schematic representation shows both kinds of ionic structure as they occur in an almost infinite variety of silicates (silicate mineral) and aluminosilicates, both natural and artificial.

      The negative ions are part of the framework; the positive ions, shown here as potassium, are small and can change places with other positive ions if the solid is placed in contact with a solution. The small positive ions must be able to move in and out; they must be located on surfaces or in the interstices of the open lattice structure.

 The two requirements for ion exchange—fixed ionic charges on a supporting material and permeability of the material to a solution—are met in a surprisingly large number of materials. The fixed charges may be negative, as in the above example, or they may be positive. The mobile ions must be of opposite charge to the fixed ions. Materials with fixed negative charges (as in Figure 1—>) exchange positive ions, or cations, and the process is called cation exchange. Those having fixed positive charges correspondingly exchange negative charges, or anions, and are said to undergo anion exchange.

      A big improvement in ion-exchange technology came in 1935, when the first ion-exchange resins (ion-exchange resin) were discovered by the English chemists Basil Albert Adams and Eric Leighton Holmes. The resins (resin) were chemical relatives of the plastic Bakelite and were made by condensing polyhydric phenols or phenolsulfonic acids with formaldehyde.

      In 1944 Gaetano F. D'Alelio patented styrene–divinylbenzene polymers (polymer), substances with large, network-like molecules, into which ionic groups were introduced by chemical treatment. The structure of these compounds may be represented thus:

      in which X represents the ionic groups, which may occur at various locations on the benzene rings. In the formula as shown, the first two benzene rings come from styrene, whereas the third is from divinylbenzene. Divinylbenzene thus provides cross-linking between the polystyrene chains, joining them into a three-dimensional network that can be tight or loose, depending on the ratio of divinylbenzene to styrene. This ratio can be varied at will; the usual commercial proportion is 8 percent. The ionic groups may be sulfonic acid groups, namely −SO3H+ or quaternary ammonium groups, −CH2N+(CH3)3Cl. These two types account for some 90 percent of all ion-exchange resins produced. The hydrogen ions and chloride ions may be replaced by other ions, such as Na+ (sodium) or OH (hydroxide); the hydrogen and hydroxide forms of these resins are very strong acids and bases, respectively.

      Styrene and divinylbenzene are liquids and are polymerized as spherical droplets, with the result that the resins have the form of beads that are almost perfect spheres. The beads swell when placed in water, and though they look smooth and impermeable, they are actually very permeable to water and small ions. They may have diameters ranging from a few microns (thousandths of a millimetre) to one to two millimetres. Different sizes are used for different purposes.

      Ionic groups other than sulfonic acid and quaternary ammonium salt may be introduced into the resin structure. A useful one is iminodiacetate, −CH2N(CH2COOH)2, which forms chelated complexes (structures held together by secondary bonds) with all metals except the alkali metals. The stability of these complexes varies widely from metal to metal. The chelating resins are used in chemical analysis to separate and concentrate trace metals.

      Resins carrying the carboxyl group, −COOH, useful in medicine and biochemistry, are based not on polystyrene but on polymethacrylic acid:

      Still another kind of ion exchanger is made from cellulose by introducing various ionic groups into the cellulose molecules. Since the ions are on the surface of the threadlike molecules, instead of being inside molecular frameworks, they are accessible to large ions and molecules. Cellulose-based exchangers are especially useful in biochemistry.

      Synthetic inorganic exchangers have been known since 1903. The first ones were aluminosilicates. About 1955 it was found that phosphates, arsenates, and molybdates of titanium, zirconium, and thorium were good cation exchangers; and many such materials have been prepared, some commercially. They are useful in the nuclear power industry for they are resistant to radiation and selective to certain radioactive (radioactive isotope) wastes, particularly the long-lived fission product cesium-137. They serve to separate that isotope from other less dangerous fission products.

      Another class of inorganic ion exchanger is the molecular sieve. These materials are crystalline aluminosilicates with well-defined structures containing pores of definite sizes that permit only certain ions to enter. When the water is removed from the pores, these substances become selective adsorbents for gas molecules of certain sizes and shapes. They also are powerful catalysts.

      The substances termed liquid ion exchangers possibly should be classed as organic solvents, rather than ion exchangers, in spite of their name. The molecules of such substances contain long hydrocarbon chains, which make them insoluble in water, but they also carry ionic groups that attract ions of opposite charge. An example of a liquid ion exchanger is dinonylnaphthalene sulfonic acid, (C9H19)2C10H5SO3H.

Ion-exchange procedures
      Only rarely are ion exchangers used in stepwise procedures, in which the resin is mixed into a container of solution and then removed for further treatment (separation and purification). Much more frequently the exchanger is packed into a tube or column (column chromatography) through which the solution is made to flow. The column arrangement forces the ion-exchange reaction, which is intrinsically reversible, to go to completion in the desired manner. The solution flowing down the column continually meets fresh exchanger, and a reaction that goes half way in the first centimetre of the column may be three-quarters completed in the second centimetre, seven-eighths in the third, and so on. In a short time, the exchangeable ions that entered the column have been adsorbed and become undetectable analytically. When the exchangeable ions do start to emerge from the end of the column, however, the column has become completely saturated with them. It may be restored to its original condition, or regenerated, by passing through it a solution of the ions that it originally contained.

      Ion-exchange columns are easy to use, but the theory behind their use is extremely complicated. A column with a solution flowing through it is a nonequilibrium system, and its interpretation must consider not only equilibrium distributions but rates of transfer of material and statistical variations in the paths of liquid flow between the granules that make up the exchanger. There are two chief theories of ion-exchange processes related to the two principal ways in which the columns are employed. In the first procedure, displacement (displacement law), the column originally contains mobile ions of one kind that are pushed down the column by the steady flow of a solution of ions of a second kind. The theory for this procedure deals with the rate at which the “front” (the boundary between the different classes of ions) advances and its concentration profile (whether the front stays sharp as it moves down the column or whether it becomes progressively more diffuse). In the second process, elution, a thin layer of ions is introduced at the top of a column already saturated with ions of a second kind; it then is washed down the column with the same kind of ions that saturated the column at the start. In elution, the theory must account for the rate of movement of the narrow band of ions and its spread as it proceeds down the column.

      When a mixture of two kinds of ions that are held by the exchanger with differing strengths is introduced at the top of a column, the mixture of ions separates as it moves down the column, with the result that the original single band of ions is resolved into two separate bands. This process is called ion-exchange chromatography. Ion-exchange chromatography is an important tool in chemical analysis because it permits separation of materials that are very difficult to separate by other means. It can be applied to organic and inorganic ions and even to substances that are not ionic. It is often used to separate mixtures of many components.

      Ion-exchange columns are made in all sizes, from the large tanks used to soften the water supply of great cities to the tiny columns holding less than a cubic centimetre of resin that are used for recovering short-lived radioactive elements in the laboratory. (The element mendelevium was discovered by the isolation of a few atoms on an ion-exchange column.) Care is needed in preparing columns for the laboratory. Dry resin must be stirred with water to let it swell before it is poured into the column. Air bubbles must not be allowed to form in the resin bed, for they interfere with the liquid flow. It is desirable to backwash the column—that is, to pass liquid upward to expand the resin bed—in order to release air bubbles and to segregate the resin particles according to size before the column is used. The aim of the preparation procedure is to assure even packing and even flow. For difficult chromatographic separations, resins having uniform, very small particles are used to facilitate mass transfer and give sharper bands. As fine particles offer much resistance to flow, solutions must be forced through under pressure. One procedure is to use long, narrow columns of stainless steel (like those used in a related process called gas chromatography) and to hasten mass transfer by using, instead of resin beads, glass spheres coated with ion-exchange resin.

      Ion exchangers, especially inorganic and cellulose-based exchangers, are used in thin-layer chromatography. Chromatographic paper for this purpose is manufactured from finely ground resins and cellulose fibres. One use for this procedure is to filter small traces of metal ions from large volumes of solution.

      Ion-exchange resins (ion-exchange resin) also may be fabricated into thin sheets, although it is not easy to make a sheet of ion exchanger that is strong and flexible and at the same time permeable; development of ion-exchange membranes has been slow for this reason. Ion-exchange membranes are used, however, to separate the electrodes of fuel cells and to remove salts from water by the physical processes termed reverse osmosis and electrodialysis. The former is a kind of filtration process—water is squeezed through the membrane under pressure while the dissolved salts (salt) are left behind. The reaction can be carried out, for example, by placing a membrane of cation-exchange resin loaded with sodium ions in contact with a dilute solution of sodium chloride. Because of the characteristics of the ion-exchange process, neither the sodium nor the chloride ions can enter the membrane. Water molecules can penetrate the membrane, however; and because of the pressure exerted on the system, they do so, crossing to the other side. The result is the removal of salt from the water without distillation (the usual desalting process).

      Electrodialysis is a process somewhat similar to reverse osmosis. Ions are able to enter an ion-exchange membrane if they are simultaneously removed from it at the other side; the effect is the same as passing an electric current through the membrane. In practice, electrodialysis is carried out by placing a cation-exchange membrane on one side of the solution to be desalted and an anion-exchange membrane on the other and then passing an electric current through the system. The result is that positive ions pass through the membrane on one side and negative ions pass through the membrane on the other. Pure water is left eventually in the area between the membranes.

Applications of ion exchange

In the laboratory
      Ion exchange is used for both analytical and preparative purposes in the laboratory, the analytical uses being the more common. An important use of ion-exchange chromatography is in the routine analysis of amino acid mixtures. Columns of cation-exchange resin are used, and the solutions are maintained sufficiently acid so that the amino acids are at least partly in their cationic forms. The 20 principal amino acids from blood serum or from the hydrolysis of proteins are separated in a few hours, and their concentrations are determined automatically by light-absorption methods. Such analysis is used in clinical diagnosis.

      In a less routine and highly important application of ion-exchange chromatography, the products of hydrolysis of nucleic acids (nucleic acid) are analyzed. In this way, information is gained about the structure of these molecules and how it relates to their biological function as carriers of hereditary information. Cation-exchange resins are used for this purpose as well. Because of their use in analyzing the structures of complex biological materials, ion-exchange chromatographic procedures have been of great importance in the development of modern molecular biology—the explanation of biological processes in terms of the interactions of molecules.

      Inorganic ions also can be separated by ion-exchange chromatography. The lanthanides, or rare-earth elements (rare-earth element), are separated on columns of cation-exchange resin. Solutions of citrates, lactates, or other salts whose anions form negatively charged complexes with the lanthanide ions are used to wash the ions from the column. The metal ions themselves are held by the resin; the complexes are not. Those ions that form more stable complexes do not adhere to the resin and therefore move off the column more quickly than the ions that do not form complexes (or complex only weakly). Cation exchange in general is not a selective process, but the above process, termed differential complex formation, renders it more so. In lanthanide separations the exchanger is like an undiscriminating sponge that simply holds the metal ions, whereas the real separation of the various metals (metal) is accomplished by the weakness or strength of the complexes formed.

      Anion exchange in hydrochloric acid is an effective way to separate metal ions. Most metals form negatively charged chloride complexes that can be held by anion-exchange resins carrying quaternary ammonium groups (NR4+). These complexes differ greatly in their stabilities in solution and in their affinities for the resin. The distribution of metal ions between the solution and the resin depends on the hydrochloric acid concentration and the identity of the metal ion. Impressive separations of metal ions can be achieved by manipulating the hydrochloric acid concentration.

      Ion-exchange separations of this kind are widely used; they can be modified by using mixed solvents, like acetone–water, and great selectivity is possible. In the process called “activation analysis,” an unknown sample to be analyzed is bombarded with neutrons, and the radioactive elements thus formed are separated by anion-exchange procedures. Such analysis is especially valuable in separating minor metallic constituents from samples containing large amounts of other substances. The technique has been used to analyze lunar rocks.

      Chelating resins are used to collect trace metals from seawater. Further, a copper-loaded chelating resin also adsorbs, by coordination, traces of amino acids from seawater. Miscellaneous analytical uses of ion exchange include the dissolving of sparingly soluble salts like calcium sulfate, the determination of total dissolved salts in natural waters (by passing them through hydrogen-loaded, cation-exchange resins and titrating the acid formed), and the identification of minute traces of ions (by absorbing them onto a single resin bead along with a colour-producing reagent).

      Preparative uses of ion exchange in the laboratory are not many, but on occasion unusual acids, such as hydroferrocyanic acid, or unusual bases, like cesium hydroxide, are prepared from their salts by passing solutions of the salts through the appropriate resins. Resins also are used to purify acids or bases that contain nonionic contaminants and to remove ionic contaminants from solvents.

In industry and medicine
      Ion exchange finds its major industrial application in the treatment of water. hard water—caused by the presence of calcium and magnesium ions, which form insoluble precipitates with soaps—is softened by exchanging its calcium and magnesium ions with sodium ions. To accomplish this, the hard water is passed through a column of cation exchanger containing sodium ions. After the column has been in use for some time, calcium and magnesium begin to appear in the water leaving the column. Then the column must be regenerated by passing a concentrated solution of common salt slowly through the column; the excess sodium ions displace the ions that produce the hardness so that, after flushing with water, the bed of exchanger is ready to be used again. At first, the exchangers used for this purpose were natural aluminosilicates; but later, synthetic resins came to be used instead.

      For special purposes, such as use in the laboratory, water is deionized—that is, freed entirely from dissolved ions of all kinds. This is accomplished by passing the water through two resin beds in separate columns. The first bed contains a cation-exchange resin bearing hydrogen ions (hydrogen ion) and converts the dissolved salts to their free acids (acid–base reaction). The second contains an anion-exchange resin loaded with hydroxyl ions; it neutralizes the acids, holding back their anions, and leaves nothing in the water but nonionic impurities. The beds are regenerated by strong acid and strong alkali, respectively. An alternative procedure, “mixed-bed” deionization, uses only one column containing the two resins mixed. Since the resins must be separated for regeneration, however, mixed beds are used chiefly in disposable cartridges for small laboratory units.

      Resins used for water treatment should last for many years, but their life may be shortened either by accumulation of colloidal matter (prevented by adding activated carbon filters) or by oxidation caused by the dissolved chlorine in the water. Quaternary-base anion-exchange resins carrying hydroxyl ions also deteriorate; they decompose slowly to give tertiary amine polymers and methanol.

      In an even older use of ion exchange, salts are removed from sugar juices to raise the yield of crystallized sugar. Deionization also can improve the flavour and storage time of pineapple juice and wine. In these and other beverage applications, ion exchange removes traces of heavy metals, which not only taste bad but also catalyze oxidation.

      In hydrometallurgy, the treatment of ores with water solutions, ion exchange helps to recover valuable metals like copper, silver, and gold from waste waters. uranium can be recovered from low-grade ores by leaching with dilute sulfuric acid—oxidizing if necessary to convert uranium(IV) to uranium(VI)—and then absorbing the negatively charged uranium sulfate complex ions on a quaternary-base anion-exchange resin. This highly selective absorption process thereby separates the uranium from iron and other metals. The uranium is later removed from the resin with dilute nitric acid.

      On an industrial scale, cation exchange separates rare-earth elements by means of a displacement technique in which each element displaces elements bound less strongly than it is as it proceeds down the column. The elements emerge (the one with the weakest bond first) one after the other in high purity.

      Ion exchangers can function as catalysts (catalysis). Strong-acid cation-exchange resins loaded with hydrogen ions catalyze certain chemical reactions carried out in the liquid phase, such as hydrolysis and esterification (ester formation). The advantage of the resin over hydrochloric acid as a catalyst in these reactions is that it is present as a separate phase that does not contaminate the product. In addition, the ion-exchange process lends itself to continuous-flow techniques. Gas-phase reactions catalyzed by metal ions, like the cracking of petroleum (petroleum refining) fractions to produce gasoline, also can be catalyzed by metal-loaded inorganic exchangers, the molecular sieves being particularly suitable for this purpose since their open crystalline structure makes every metal ion accessible.

      Ion-exchange resins (ion-exchange resin) have a limited use in medicine. Carboxylic resins containing hydrogen or ammonium ions, taken by mouth, remove sodium ions from the gastrointestinal tract and control edema; other resins are consumed to lower acidity in the stomach and hence to soothe stomach ulcers (peptic ulcer). Interest in these treatments has declined, however, because of the resins' undersirable side effects. Resins also are incorporated into artificial kidneys outside the body to remove ammonium and potassium ions from the blood. The most important medical applications of ion exchange, however, have been made in clinical analysis procedures that depend on ion-exchange chromatography.

Equilibria (chemical equilibrium) and kinetics

Ion-exchange equilibria
      The reversibility of ion-exchange reactions greatly affects the behaviour of ion-exchange systems. Typical ion-exchange reactions can be written as follows:

      in which Res stands for an ion fixed in the resin or other type of exchanger and A+ and B+ are univalent cations (monopositive ions) while C2+ is a divalent cation.

      As is generally true of reversible reactions, equations can be written describing the relative concentrations (amount of material per unit volume) of the various species in equilibrium—that is, when the rate of the forward reaction is equalled by that of the reverse reaction. For the ion-exchange processes indicated above, the following equations demonstrate the relations of the materials present under the conditions of equilibrium:

      In these equations, the constant K1 is a pure number without units (such as feet per second) because the units on the right side of the equation cancel. The numerical value of K2, however, as well as its units, depends on the units chosen to express the concentrations on the right side of the equation. Since the constant K1 or K2 is the most useful simple description of the equilibrium conditions of an ion-exchange reaction (and knowledge of its value permits calculation of the concentrations of the various substances in equilibrium under specified conditions), determinations of K values are fundamental steps in the study of ion-exchange reactions. For concentrations in the resin, the proportions of mobile ions to the resin framework can be used, or one can refer the amounts of mobile ions to the weight of water that the resin contains. More constant values of K2 can be obtained by reference to the resin rather than to the water, which is fortunate, because the water content of a swollen resin depends on the mobile ions it contains and it is hard to measure. As experimentally determined, however, the values of K1 and K2 are not constant but vary with the proportions of exchangeable ions in the resin. This result leads to the unsurprising conclusion that the interior of the resin is not an ideal solution.

      The distribution of ions of unequal charge, like B+ and C2+ above, depends on the total concentration of the solution. The more dilute the solution, the greater the tendency for the ions of higher charge to accumulate in the exchanger. One doubly-charged ion entering the exchanger sends two singly-charged ions back into the solution, and the more dilute the solution, the more likely is this replacement to happen. This effect, called “electroselectivity,” is used in water softening. Calcium ions are taken up from hard water, which is a dilute solution, whereas they are removed from the resin by regenerating with a solution of sodium chloride that is concentrated.

      Many studies have been made of ion-exchange equilibria and the factors that influence the values of K. Different ions are held by exchangers with different strengths. As yet it is impossible to predict a priori the magnitude of K, but one can make certain generalizations, which are different for cation and anion exchange. For the alkali (alkali metal) and alkaline-earth metal ions, the strength of binding varies inversely as the ionic hydration. Thus, lithium ions, the most strongly hydrated of the alkali metal ions, are the most weakly held by resins, followed in order by sodium, potassium, rubidium, and finally cesium, which forms the strongest bond with the resins. In the alkaline earths the increasing order runs from beryllium to magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium, and to radium, which is the most strongly held.

      These sequences are characteristic of resins whose functional group is the sulfonate ion. Resins bearing carboxylate ions, or with fully ionized phosphonate ions, exhibit different sequences. The electrostatic field strength of the fixed ion on the resin determines the order of separation. When the charge on the fixed ion is small and spread over a large area, as in the sulfonate ion, −SO3 the field strength is weak and the mobile ions keep their primary hydration shell—that is, the water molecules they hold by direct coordination. The more strongly hydrated ions migrate to where there is more water—that is, out of the resin and into the surrounding solution.

      When the ionic charge is concentrated, however, as it is around the terminal oxygens of silicate networks, the mobile cations are attracted so strongly that the primary hydration shell may be squeezed out. The fixed and mobile ions then come into direct contact. The smaller the mobile ion the closer it gets to the fixed ion and the greater the force that holds it. When the ionic charge is extremely concentrated, the alkali-metal sequence is completely reversed: lithium is held most strongly and cesium the least strongly. Intermediate sequences are possible. In this way the selectivity orders in glass electrodes and biological membranes, both of which function by competitive surface adsorption of positive ions, can be explained. This theory is of little help, however, in explaining selectivity orders of heavy-metal ions; in this case, other factors, as yet unknown, seem to be at work.

      The selectivity sequence for halide ions in resins with quaternary-ammonium fixed ions is fluoride, chloride, bromide, and iodide, with fluoride being held the most weakly. This resembles the cation selectivity order, in which the smallest ion also is held most weakly. On the other hand, the differences between the various ions in degree of attachment to the resin is much greater in the series of halide anions than in the series of alkali-metal cations. Iodide is held a hundred times as strongly as fluoride in an 8 percent cross-linked quaternary-ammonium resin; whereas in an 8 percent cross-linked sulfonic resin, cesium is held four times as strongly as lithium.

      It is significant that anions are larger than cations (in their crystal-lattice radii) and that they interact with water in a different way. Instead of attracting dipolar water molecules around them, anions tend to break up the hydrogen-bonded structure of liquid water, with the result that the bigger they are, the more difficult it is for them to enter the water. Large ions are thus driven out of the water and into the resin—a phenomenon of great practical value in achieving separations. Perchlorate ions, ClO4, are held 10 times as strongly as iodide ions. This effect extends to complex ions such as the chlorides of iron and gold, FeCl4 and AuCl4, which are held very strongly by quaternary ammonium-type anion-exchange resins. The effect of large size may sometimes be offset by an increased ionic charge, which tends to orient the water molecules and stabilize the dissolved ion. Thus, the higher charged zinc complex ZnCl42−, with its double negative charge, is more weakly bound by the resin than the iron complex FeCl4, with its single negative charge.

      Very large ions, of course, cannot enter the resin network. With ions of moderate size, the entry of the ion into the network may become a limiting factor, and it becomes important to distinguish between unfavourable equilibrium, on the one hand, and slow exchange, on the other. The equilibrium absorption may be large, but it may take a long time to reach it because the ion has difficulty entering the resin.

Ion-exchange kinetics (chemical kinetics)
      Generally, ion exchange is fast. No electron-pair bonds need be broken, and the rate of the process is limited only by the rate (reaction rate) at which ions can diffuse (diffusion) in and out of the exchanger structure. The openness of the resin structure, however, depends on the degree of its swelling and on its water content. When both swelling and water content are small, diffusion rates are correspondingly slow. This is true of carboxylic-acid resins and of chelating resins in their acid (hydrogen-ion) form, for these acids are weakly ionized. It is also true of metal-loaded chelating resins. These types of exchangers require ample time for reaction; thus, it is advisable to use a resin with fine particles. High temperature also hastens diffusion. Nonetheless, the general rapidity and efficiency of their actions have brought widespread acceptance and use of ion exchangers.

Harold F. Walton

Additional Reading
Friedrich Helfferich, Ion Exchange (1962; originally published in German, 1959), is a standard early reference work on the theory of ion exchange. Robert Kunin, Ion Exchange Resins, 2nd ed. (1958, reprinted 1990), provides a short practical guide to ion-exchange resins and their use. William Rieman III and Harold F. Walton, Ion Exchange in Analytical Chemistry (1970), discusses the theory and types of ion exchangers. Further sources include M. Douglas Levan et al. (eds.), Adsorption and Ion Exchange: Fundamentals and Applications (1988); Lorenzo Liberti and John R. Millar (eds.), Fundamentals and Applications of Ion Exchange (1985); and A. Dyer, M.J. Hudson, and P.A. Williams (eds.), Ion Exchange Processes: Advances and Applications (1993). Ion Exchange and Solvent Extraction (irregular), contains current publications in these fields.Information on the increasingly important areas of ion chromatography and membrane separations can be found in Hamish Small, Ion Chromatography (1989); Robert E. Smith, Ion Chromatography Applications (1988); and D.S. Flett (ed.), Ion Exchange Membranes (1983). Details on separations of biological materials by ion exchange methods can be found in books on the separations of the biological components of interest—e.g., Shuichi Yamamoto, Kazuhiro Nakanishi, and Ryuichi Matsuno, Ion-Exchange Chromatography of Proteins (1988).Harold F. Walton Ed.

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Universalium. 2010.

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