Calcium ion

Surface water Is usually undersaturated in calcium ions (Ca ). Where (even saturated) surface water mixes with sea water, mixing zone corrosion will dissolve calcium carbonate. Evidence of this occurring may be seen on islands. 

Calcium plays an important part in structure-building in living organisms, perhaps mainly because of its ability to link together phosphate-containing materials. Calcium ions in the cell play a vital part in muscle contraction. 

This produces sufficient concentrations of magnesium and calcium ions to render the water hard. The above reaction is readily reversed by boiling the water when the magnesium and calcium ions responsible for the hardness are removed as the insoluble carbonate. 

A salt originally called sodium hexametaphosphate, with n believed to be 6, is now thought to contain many much larger anion aggregates. It has the important property that it sequesters , i.e. removes, calcium ions from solution. Hence it is much used as a water-softener. 

It is thus important to determine the relative amounts of calcium and magnesium, for addition of too much lime means that calcium ions are reintroduced into the water, i.e. it becomes hard again, the hardness being permanent. 

Calcium ion plays an important role in many aqueous environmental systems. A useful direct analysis takes advantage of its reaction with the ligand ethylenedi-aminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), which we will represent as... 

Minimizing Chemical Interferences The quantitative analysis of some elements is complicated by chemical interferences occurring during atomization. The two most common chemical interferences are the formation of nonvolatile compounds containing the analyte and ionization of the analyte. One example of a chemical interference due to the formation of nonvolatile compounds is observed when P04 or AP+ is added to solutions of Ca +. In one study, for example, adding 100 ppm AP+ to a solution of 5 ppm Ca + decreased the calcium ion s absorbance from 0.50 to 0.14, whereas adding 500 ppm POp to a similar solution of Ca + decreased the absorbance from 0.50 to 0.38. These interferences were attributed to the formation of refractory particles of Ca3(P04)2 and an Al-Ca-O oxide. 

One example of a liquid-based ion-selective electrode is that for Ca +, which uses a porous plastic membrane saturated with di-(n-decyl) phosphate (Figure 11.13). As shown in Figure 11.14, the membrane is placed at the end of a nonconducting cylindrical tube and is in contact with two reservoirs. The outer reservoir contains di-(n-decyl) phosphate in di- -octylphenylphosphonate, which soaks into the porous membrane. The inner reservoir contains a standard aqueous solution of Ca + and a Ag/AgCl reference electrode. Calcium ion-selective electrodes are also available in which the di-(n-decyl) phosphate is immobilized in a polyvinyl chloride... 

Pectins are readily soluble in water to give viscous stable solutions. However, the importance of pectin to industry, in particular the food industry, is the abihty of its solutions to form gels with sugar (ca 65% soHds) and acid or calcium ion under suitable conditions (51). 

Sodium ions are displaced from the resin by calcium ions, for which the resin has a greater selectivity. 

Direct Metal Analyses. Calcium ion can be detected to a lower limit of 10 M hy Aequorea bioluminescence. Strontium interferes to a minor extent (270,271). 

The calcium ion, necessary for blood-clot formation, stimulates release of bloodclotting factors from platelets (see Blood, coagulants and anticoagulants) (25). Neuromuscular excitabihty also depends on the relative concentrations of Na", Ca ", Mg ", and (26). Upon a decrease in... 

Contraction of muscle follows an increase of Ca " in the muscle cell as a result of nerve stimulation. This initiates processes which cause the proteins myosin and actin to be drawn together making the cell shorter and thicker. The return of the Ca " to its storage site, the sarcoplasmic reticulum, by an active pump mechanism allows the contracted muscle to relax (27). Calcium ion, also a factor in the release of acetylcholine on stimulation of nerve cells, influences the permeabiUty of cell membranes activates enzymes, such as adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase), Hpase, and some proteolytic enzymes and facihtates intestinal absorption of vitamin B 2 [68-19-9] (28). 

Blood Calcium Ion Level. In normal adults, the blood Ca " level is estabhshed by an equiUbrium between blood Ca " and the more soluble intercrystalline calcium salts of the bone. Additionally, a subtle and intricate feedback mechanism responsive to the Ca " concentration of the blood that involves the less soluble crystalline hydroxyapatite comes into play. The thyroid and parathyroid glands, the fiver, kidney, and intestine also participate in Ca " control. The salient features of this mechanism are summarized in Figure 2 (29—31). 

The 2eohte sodium X (type 13X) has a crystallographic aperture of 0.74 nm. This compares well with the adsorbate value of 0.81 nm. ZeoHte calcium X exhibits a smaller apparent pore si2e of 0.78 nm (lOX). This difference is probably due to some distortion of the aluminosihcate framework upon dehydration and calcium ion migration. 

Acrylate and acrylamide polymers have several uses in drilling fluids, one of which is for filtration control. Sodium polyacrylates [9003-04-7] having molecular weights near 250,000 are exceUent temperature-stable filtration control agents for both fresh- and salt water muds, provided the concentration of water-soluble calcium is <400 mg/L (83). The calcium ions are precipitated using a carbonate such as soda ash, before adding the polyacrylate at concentrations up to ca 6 kg/m (3 Ib/bbl). 

Sodium fatty acid ester sulfonates are known to be highly attractive as surfactants. These have good wetting abiHty and exceUent calcium ion stabiHty as weU as high detergency without phosphates, and are used in powders or Hquids. They can also be used in the textile industry, emulsion polymerization, cosmetics, and metal surface fields. Moreover, they are attractive because they are produced from renewable natural resources and their biodegradabiHty is almost as good as alkyl sulfates (134—137). 

This reaction is relatively fast and readily reversible so that in drainage basins in carbonate-dominated terranes the stream water commonly will have near-equihbrium concentrations of hydrogen, bicarbonate, and calcium ions. At equiUbrium, the rates of forward and reverse processes represented in equation 5 are equal. 

Since the effluent from a softening unit is usually supersaturated with calcium carbonate at the usually high pH values, it is necessary to reduce the pH to a value that allows the solution to be exactiy saturated for the calcium-ion and carbonate-ion concentrations present. The relationship is... 

---