The reversed-phase ion-pair liquid chromatographic behavior of the complex of aluminum ion with 5-sulfoquinoline-8-ol (HQS) was investigated on the column packed with a polystyrene-divinylbenzene copolymer with the mobile phase containing fluoride ion. It was found that the fluoride ion replaces one or two HQS molecules from the aluminum-HQS complex to form the mixed ligand complexes, which resulted in the appearance of two or more peaks in the chromatograms obtained for aluminum ion. The compositions of the mixed ligand complexes were estimated from the dependence of the areas of the peaks on the mobile phase concentrations of HQS and fluoride ion. The equilibrium and rate constants for the ligand exchange reaction were also evaluated and the reaction mechanism was presented. Aluminum ion could be completely separated from gallium ion by utilizing the ligand exchange reaction. It is now universally recognized that aluminum is toxic to a wide variety of living organisms. This has created the need for rapid and reliable methods for the determination of trace amounts of dissolved aluminum in biological and environmental samples. Various colorimetric and fluorometric methods based on the complexation with chelating agents have been developed for this purpose. '-9 5-Sulfoquinoline-8-ol (HQS) has been well documented on the fluorometric reaction with aluminum10'1' and has been extensively used for the determination of trace amounts of aluminum by fluorometry, flow injection analysis and high-performance liquid chromatography.8"2-15 However, only a few investigations have been carried out on the complexation reaction of aluminum ion with HQS and the mechanism has not yet been clarified. We have recently investigated the reversed-phase ion-pair liquid chromatographic behavior of aluminum complexes with HQS in the phosphate media with a fluorescence detector16'17 and have shown that the reaction between aluminum ion and HQS produced two species of aluminum-HQS complexes. These two species were assigned to the complex of aluminum with HQS and a mixed ligand complex with HQS and phosphate ion. The equilibrium of the interconversion reaction between these two species depended on the column temperature, the concentrations t To whom correspondence should be addressed.of HQS and phosphate ion in the eluent and pH value. Traditionally, spectrophotometric methods have been used to study the equilibrium and kinetics of chemical reactions in solution. However, these methods require that the spectra of the reactant and the product be different from each other, because the progress of the reaction is followed by directly monitoring the entire reaction mixture. A preliminary experiment revealed that the complex of aluminum with HQS and the mixed ligand complex with HQS and phosphate ion have nearly the same fluorometric spectra. Although their UV absorption spectra may be different from each other, the aluminum complex species cannot be distinguished in the presence of an excess amount of HQS, since HQS exhibits the absorption ban...