TY - JOUR A1 - Prestel, H. A1 - Schott, L. A1 - Niessner, R. A1 - Panne, Ulrich T1 - Characterization of sewage plant hydrocolloids using asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation and ICP-mass spectrometry N2 - Asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (AF4) was applied to characterize aquatic colloids from biological sewage plants and to infer information of colloidal loads, sources, and sinks within the plants, resp. the colloidal interaction with the aqueous phase and the sewage sludge. To characterize the colloids further, especially the distributions of colloid associated heavy metals, the AF4 system was coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). The size distribution is determined by AF4 with UV absorbance and fluorescence detection after a calibration by monodisperse polystyrene sulfonate standards (PSS). Samples from different sewage plants and from different depths and locations within a plant were compared. The fulvic/humic acid fraction with a particle diameter dp < 10 nm appeared to be comparable in all samples and decreases only slightly along the plants, whereas larger colloids with dp > 10 nm almost completely passed into the sewage sludge. The concentrations of the initial colloidal heavy metals decreased along the plants. KW - Humic colloids KW - Biological sewage plants KW - Asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (AF4) KW - Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) PY - 2005 SN - 0043-1354 VL - 39 IS - 15 SP - 3541 EP - 3552 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-10887 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -