Abstract:

Self-built ion chromatography and its application in testing inorganic anions offers an experiment for students of chemistry major to build and debug the ion chromatography by themselves. The new experiment includes the assembly and construction of ion chromatographic system including its key component of electrochemical ion suppressor, the debugging of the function and measurement of the performance of the instrument, and the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the inorganic anions in real samples, such as tap water, lake water and tea drink. It is conducive to deepening students' understanding of the principle and configuration of the instrument for chemical analysis. It also helps improve the creative thinking, practical ability, and team work of students. Furthermore, the students can be heavily involved during the experiment. As the project uses commercially available standard components and home-built components to construct the instrument, the experiment can be finished with a high reproducibility and success rate. This experiment can also serve as a tool to improve the capability of instructors and the teaching performance. This self-built ion chromatography is much cheaper than the commercial one and has low request on the teaching cost, which is suitable to be extended to the fundamental laboratory course in Instrumental Analysis in most universities.

Key words: Ion chromatography (IC), IC suppressor, Inorganic anions