Abstract: | The molecular weight (M. W.) distributions of iron and manganese species in dam water samples were investigated by use of gel filtration, while the ion-exchangeable and non-ion-exchangeable fractions of these metals were also analysed by ion-exchange chromatography. For the samples studied, more than 96 per cent of the manganese species present were found to be ion-exchangeable, whilst less than 35 per cent of iron species were ion-exchangeable. These results correlated with the finding that all the manganese species had molecular weights less than 700, but that the molecular weights of the iron species were mostly in excess of 5000. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy has been used to support the finding that manganese is almost totally present in the form of simple aquated Mn(II) ions. |