A simple ICP-MS procedure for the determination of total mercury in whole blood and urine

✍ Scribed by Ramaswami Kalamegham; K. Owen Ash

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 300 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-8013
• DOI: 10.1002/jcla.1860060405

✦ Synopsis

A simple and sensitive procedure for total mercury in whole blood and urine using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is described. Specimens are prepared by precipitation-extraction with 50% viv hydrochloric acid containing EDTA and cysteine, centrifuged, and filtered through fritended screening column; the filtrates are directly analyzed by ICP-MS. The method is linear between 2 and 200 pgiL in the specimen with an absolute sensitivity of 0.2 pg/L in the final supernatant. The assay variability at various concentrations (pgiL) of mer-cury are as follows: intra-assay whole blood (n = 20)-4.6 t 0.6(c.v.12.3%),18.3 & 1.1 (c.v. 6.l%), 56.4 & 2.8(c.v. 5.0%); inter-assay whole blood (n = 1 5 b 5 . 7 t 1 .O (c.v. 16.8%), 19.7 t 2.7(c.v. 13.5YO),and50.1 * 6.9(c.v. 13.7%); urine (n = 20)-9.3 2 1.2 (c.v. 12.9%), 29.6 & 2.2 (c.v. 7.4%). Recovery of organic and inorganic mercury from blood samples ranges from 91.6% to 1 10.2%. The method is suitable for analysis of total mercury, both organic and inorganic, in whole blood and urine. Q 1992Wiley-~iss, Inc.