Indian Journal of Chemistry Vol. 46A, January 2007, pp. 97-100 Studies on multielemental uptake of amide incorporated Amberlite IRC-50 using tracer packet techniques Samir Maji a , Sukalyan Basu a & Susanta Lahiri* ,b a Department of Chemistry, The University of Burdwan, Burdwan 713 104, India b Chemical Sciences Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/AF Bidhannagar, Kolkata 700 064, India Email: susanta.lahiri@saha.ac.in Received 7 July 2006; revised 2 November 2006 A chelating resin has been synthesized by incorporating amide group into Amberlite IRC-50, a weakly acidic polymer. Tracer packet technique has been used to study the multielemental uptake on amide incorporated Amberlite IRC-50 ion exchanger. It has been found that the resin has high adsorption affinity for Cu, Zn, Hg, Pb and Tl, and for the lanthanides Tb, Dy and Er. IPC Code: Int. Cl. 8 B01D15/04; B01J39/00 Selectivity towards different metal ions is the most important parameter for an ion exchanger. Conventional ion exchanging systems (e.g., strong acid cation exchangers) sometimes lack selectivity even within a mixture of cations. However, introduction of suitable chelating group might enhance the ion exchange behaviour of original polymer 1-3 . Recently, the ‘Tracer Packet’ concept has been introduced by Lahiri and Nayak 4 . According to this concept, similar elements occur together in nature and the properties of one element are modified by the presence of the other. Thus, to be close to the natural systems, similar elements should be taken together in experimental systems. Micronutrient elements are important in human and biological entities 5 . The essential trace elements, Zn, Se Mn, Cu and Fe are in competitive and synergistic relationship with each other. Tracer packet of micronutrient elements contains no-carrier-added radionuclides of 71,72 As, 61,62 Cu, 71,72,73 Se, 62,63 Zn, 66,67,68 Ga and 68,69 Ge; which have been produced through 59 Co( 16 O, xn), 59 Co( 7 Li, xpyn) or 59 Co( 12 C,xn) types of nuclear reactions. Similarly, compounds of Pb, Hg and Tl are well known to cause neurological disorder in humans. The alkyl derivatives of certain metals such as Pb, Hg are specially neurotoxic 6 . Again, different radionuclides of Hg, Tl, Pb, Po, Bi are the members of natural decay series. Thus, a system is required for all of these radionuclides together, which is named as `tracer packet of heavy and toxic metals’ containing 197,199 Hg, 199,200,201,202 Tl, 200,201,202 Pb, 204,205 Po, and 204,205 Bi which are produced through ( 7 Li, xpyn) or ( 12 C, xn) types of nuclear reactions in the gold matrix 4 . To study the behaviour of heavier rare earth elements in presence of one another, tracer packet of heavier rare earth elements 7 have been produced by irradiating Eu 2 O 3 target successively with medium energy (~7 MeV/u) 7 Li and 12 C beams. These medium energy heavy ion beams produce radionuclides of heavier rare earth elements like Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm through [ 7 Li, xn] or [ 12 C, xn] types of nuclear reaction in the Eu 2 O 3 target matrix. Synthesis of a new ion exchange resin, wherein amide group has been incorporated into a weakly acidic ion exchange polymer, Amberlite IRC-50, is reported here. The resulting polymer offers a multidentate site containing O and N donor atoms. An attempt has been made to study the multielemental uptake on amide incorporated Amberlite IRC-50 ion exchanger using the three tracer packets described earlier. Presence of chelating group in resultant exchanger might make it suitable for absorption of cations in an analogous manner to the case where thioacetamide 8 and thiosemicarbazide groups 9 are incorporated in the same matrix. Experimental Amberlite IRC 50 was procured from Fluka, Thionylchloride (SRL, India), Ammonia (Merck), EDTA (Merck) and all other reagents were of AR grade. Amberlite IRC 50 containing weakly acidic carboxylic group (5 g, mesh size 16-50) were refluxed for 4 h in a round bottom flask with thionylchloride. The excess thionylchloride was removed by slow evaporation. Then, 30 mL of concentrated ammonia