• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.288-294
• /
• 2009

Flow field-flow fractionation (Fl-FFF) device has been widely used to verify the size and molecular weight of various colloids and organics. The Fl-FFF, however, generally uses carrier solutions with only low to moderate ionic strengths to exclude the high affinity of materials to the membrane under high ionic strength conditions. Thus, materials existing in seawaters have not been accurately analysed based on the hydrodynamic size and molecular weight using current Fl-FFF techniques. The highest ionic strength tested was up to 0.1 M, while seawater ionic strength is about 0.6 M. The aim of this study is to accurately measure the hydrodynamic size of particles under carrier solutions close to seawater conditions with the Fl-FFF. By employing various operating conditions during the Fl-FFF analyses, it was demonstrated that the flow conditions, the concentration of surfactants, and stabilization times were key factors in acquiring compatible data. Results have shown that the cross flow was more influential factor than the channel flow. The concentration of the surfactant was to be at least 0.05% and the minimum 15 hr of stabilization was needed for accurate and reproducible data acquisition under seawater condition.