Evaluation of the Adsorption Properties of Silicalite for Potential Application to Isolating Polar Low-Molecular-Weight Organics from Drinking Water

摘要

Because of their high affinity for water, low-molecular weight polar organic compounds are difficult to isolate from drinking water as a prelude to their identification and determination. Conventional isolation techniques such as solvent extraction, adsorption, gas purging and reverse osmosis yield only low recoveries when applied to small molecules with water-like chemical and physical properties. In this work the chemical and physical properties of the adsorbent known as Silicalite were explored, the characteristics of the molecular sieve for accumulating analytes from aqueous and from gaseous streams were elucidated, techniques were developed for recovering adsorbed organic materials from the molecular sieve adsorbent, and an analytical protocol was developed for determining low-molecular weight analytes such as dichloroacetonitrile in standard samples. When the procedure was optimized for the determination of dichloroacetonitrile, quantitative recoveries were obtained on standard samples.