Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
7674559 Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy 2014 32 Pages PDF
Abstract
We described the hyphenation of photo-induced chemical vapor generation with high performance liquid chromatography-atomic fluorescence spectrometry (HPLC-AFS) for the quantification of inorganic mercury, methylmercury (MeHg) and ethylmercury (EtHg). In the developed procedure, formic acid in mobile phase was used for the photodecomposition of organomercury compounds and reduction of Hg2 + to mercury vapor under microwave/ultraviolet (MW/UV) irradiation. We optimized the proposed method studying the influence of several operating parameters, including the type of organic acid and its concentration, MW power, composition of HPLC mobile phase and catalytic action of TiO2 nanoparticles. Under the optimized conditions, the limits of detection were 0.15, 0.15 and 0.35 μg L− 1 for inorganic mercury, MeHg and EtHg, respectively. The developed method was validated by determination of the main analytical figures of merit and applied to the analysis of three certified reference materials. The online interfacing of liquid chromatography with photochemical-vapor generation-atomic fluorescence for mercury determination is simple, environmentally friendly, and represents an attractive alternative to the conventional tetrahydroborate (THB) system.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Chemistry Analytical Chemistry
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