Artificial shellfish for the extraction and determination of transition metals in aqueous solution

A chelate-ion exchange matrix has been successfully sandwiched between membrane filters to construct physical-chemical analogs which resemble living membranes in their adsorptive capacity of transition metals. The fabricated disc (Metro-DiscTM) selectively adsorbs and concentrates metallic ions by a factor up to 1000 over the ambient background concentration in aqueous solution. Combined with multichannel emission spectrophotometry, the Metro-Disc offers rapid determination of microgram/ kg quantities of Cu2+, Ni2+, Pb2+, Zn2+, and Cr6+, in water.