The weight measurements made during the various processing steps allowed 

 the calculation of the amount of 5 percent HNO3 transferred with each worm 

 from vial (A) to vial (B), and from vial (B) to vial (C). Therefore, the amount 

 of solubilized Cu transferred during the transfer steps could be calculated. The 

 amount of 5 percent HNO3 transferred from the (A) vial to the (B) vials ranged 

 between 7 and 20 percent of the 5 percent HNO3 present in the (A) vials. 

 Figure 5-2 shows the calculated mass of Cu that should be present in the (B) 

 vials versus the measured mass of Cu present in the (B) vials. The solid line 

 represents a perfect correlation, and is not the calculated regression line. This 

 plot shows that there is very Uttle copper that cannot be accounted for in the 

 second elution that has not been transferred from the first solution. 



Figure 5-3 shows a plot of the original freeze-dried weights of the worms, 

 versus the freeze-dried weights of the worms after two elutions in 5 percent 

 HNO3. It is mteresting to note that the worms lost 50.5 ± 7.2 percent of their 

 weight with the two elutions. The Na concentrations were measured in all 

 samples, and indicated that only about half of the freeze-dried weight loss 

 could be attributed to the loss of solubilized NaCl. Most of the unexplained 

 weight loss probably comes from solubihzed organic matter. On a qualitative 

 basis, this was confirmed by the color of the (A) and (B) solutions which were 

 pale yellow in color, and contained very surface active compounds. Even 

 though the worms may have been slowly dissolving in the 5 percent HNOo, 

 only a few of the worms had broken down into two or more pieces, and 

 generally from a physical appearance looked unchanged. 



0.10 



0.02 



0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 



CALCULATED MASS (//g) 

 Figure 5-2. Calculated mass of Cu in the (B) vials versus the 

 measured mass of Cu in the (B) vials. 



65 



