Neutron activation analysis of magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium, manganese, cobalt, copper, zinc, sodium, and potassium in human erythrocytes and plasma.

Except forstrontiumand barium,the elementsconsideredin thisstudyare of known biological importance.Strontiumand barium are of toxicologic inter est. The method presented was developed in conjunction with studies on the changes in concentrations of selected cations in human erythrocytes during storage (1). Samsahi,Brune,and Wester (2,3,4,5) have developedexcellention ex change procedures for separating many radioactivated elements in biological media. These procedures involve group separations, using more than one type of resin, i.e., anion, cation, and mixed bed. It was desired that a rapid and simplified ion exchange method be devised for selected cations which would have good decontamination factors with a minimum of chemistry. Parr and Taylor (6) de veloped an ion exchange method for Co, Cu, Fe, and Zn, using an anion resin equilibrated with hydrochloric acid. Co, Cu, and Fe were separated as a group from Zn after decontaminating for sodium-24. Using Kraus and Moore's data (7) on the adsorption coefficients of elements from hydrochloric acid as a guide, the selective elemental elution method was formulated. It is conceded that atomic absorption, emission spectrometry, and other methods of analysis (8, 9, 10) may be just as accurate and more convenient for certain elements, such as sodium, potassium, and group II A metals; however, for some elements radioactivation has certain advantages, depending on the matrix and trace element concentrations.