Electrochemical removal and simultaneous sensing of mercury with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry from drinking water

Mercury is a naturally occurring metallic chemical element in environment. Environmental levels of mercury vary between water resources. The concentration level of mercury in drinking water is 30 ng/L, which is accepted by US Environmental Protection Agency. Therefore, the simultaneous sensing and treatment of water by recently improved technologies are very important. In this work, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and electrochemical techniques were applied together to determine and remove mercury for the first time. ICP-MS was chosen as a sensitive, multielement capable, powerful, and reliable spectrometry type between other heavy metals determination methods, and it is also applied to research drinking water resources. New nanodimensional surfaces were constructed to respond to specific mercury behavior, and simple, cost-efficient, and practical electrochemical techniques were used to remove mercury existing in drinking water samples. After electrodeposition of mercury over the proposed electrode, treated, clean, and mercury-free water samples were obtained.