Determination of mercury in urine by flow-injection cold vapour atomic absorption spectrometry

✍ Scribed by Tiezheng Guo; Jörn Baasner

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 643 KB
• Volume: 278
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-2670
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-2670(93)80096-4

✦ Synopsis

A simple, rapid and accurate method was developed for the determination of total mercury in urine samples . The method uses on-line addition of KMnO4 after adding a bromate-bromide reagent to the sample to decompose organic mercury compounds to inorganic mercury(II) ions at room temperature, and determines mercury by flow-injection cold vapour atomic absorption spectrometry . The recoveries of five mercury compounds added to urine were studied ; with the proposed method the recoveries of all the mercury compounds used were complete . Good agreement with certificate values of urine reference materials was also obtained . The detection limit of the method based on three standard deviations of the blank was 0 .1 µg Hg l -1 in urine with a 500-µl sample loop, achieving a sample throughput of 100 h -1. The calibration graphs were linear up to 30 µg 1 -1 and with a dynamic range up to 100 µg Hg 1 -1 . At a concentration of 5 µg Hg 1 -1 in urine, the relative standard deviation was about 2% .