THE PAPER CHROMATOGRAPHIC SEPARATION OF RHENIUM,VANADIUM, MOLYBDENUM AND TUNGSTEN

The present paper deals with the separation of rhenium from vanadium, molybdenum and tungsten by means of paper chromatography. Fourteen eluents of n-butanol-base containing various complexing agents and acids have been tested. Experimental results show that good separation of rhenium from the elements mentioned can be achieved with all the eluents tried. Among them, five eluents, namely no. 1, 2, 7, 13 and 14a, can also be used for the separation of these four elements from one another with fairly good results.Attention has also been paid to the influence of acidity on the R_F values of the four elements studied. It has been found experimentally that the. R_F values of rhenium, molybdenum and tungsten increase with increasing acidity, that of rhenium has a linear relationship with acidity. However, the behaviour of vanadium differs from that of the other three elements in that its R_F value changes slightly with increasing acidity.