Abstract
The swelling of a sulphonic acid resin in the NH[4][+], Li(I), K(I), Ag(I), Cu(II), Ni(II), Mn(II), Co(II), Cr(III), and Fe(III) forms, in aqueous ammonia solution, has been described in this thesis. The swelling of some metal form resins in aqueous ethylenediamine and propylenediamine solutions has been studied for comparison. It was found that the alkali metal form resins did not show any preference for ammonia but other transition metal form resins did show such preference for ammonia and for the other bases studied. The absorption of base by such resins was quantitative and hence it was possible to construct the formation curves for the ammine and amine complexes and to derive stability constants by Bjerrum's half-step method, for the amine complexes formed in the resins. For chromium(III) and iron(III) ammines and amine complexes such stability constants are derived for the first time; in aqueous solutions precipitation of th9 metal hydroxides would occur on adding the bases. The ethylenediamine and propylenediamine molecules experienced some restrictive effect in being accommodated in the resin due to their large size, and hence the complex formation is not always complete with these bases. When no restrictive effect was experienced by the solvent molecules, the swelling of a metal form resin in aqueous basis solvents was found to be in the order pn>en>NH[3]. Copper was released to the outer solution when the copper form resin was equilibrated with aqueous ethanolamine solution. Some conductimetric and potentiometric titrations were carried out to study the nature of the complexes formed. Such studies revealed the presence of a weak base [CuE[2](OH)[2]] in aqueous solution. The intermediate mono-acid base [CuE[3](OH)][+]...(OH) and the di-acid base [CuE4][+++]...(OH)[2] might also be expected, and at sufficiently high concentrations of amine the latter was shown to be formed.