The weight measurements made during the various processing steps allowed 
the calculation of the amount of 5 percent HNO^ 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 HNO^ transferred from the (A) vial to the (B) vials ranged 
between 7 and 20 percent of the 5 percent HNO^ 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 little 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 
HNO 3 . It is interesting 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 solubilized 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 HNO^, 
•only a few of the worms had broken down into two or more pieces, and 
generally from a physical appearance looked unchanged. 
Figure 5-2. Calculated mass of Cu in the (B) vials versus the 
measured mass of Cu in the (B) vials. 
65 
