Monitoring inorganic mercury and methylmercury species with liquid chromatography-piezoelectric detection |
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Institution: | Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Córdoba, Campus de Rabanales, Annex Building C-3, 14071 Córdoba, Spain |
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Abstract: | A piezoelectric detection system coupled with a liquid chromatographic system is developed for the speciation of inorganic mercury(II) and methylmercury. Piezoelectric detection has been demonstrated to be a very sensitive detection system for total mercury determination when a gold-coated piezoelectric quartz crystal was used. The analytical features of this detection unit make it very suitable to be used as a detector coupled with a liquid chromatographic system for monitoring mercury species. After separation by a chromatography column (Spherisorb ODS-2, 5 μm, mm i.d.), mercury species are liberated and reduced, by using stannous chloride, and are detected as an amalgam on the gold-coated piezoelectric quartz crystal, the sensor subsequently was regenerated by passing a peroxydisulfate solution. This detector exhibits good sensitivity, it allows the determination of mercury at sub-ppb concentration levels (0.30-1.20 μg l−1). The precision, expressed as relative standard deviation, was ±2.7% (n=11) for a 0.5 μg l−1 total mercury concentration. The proposed method is free of interferences and it allowed the determination of inorganic mercury and methylmercury species in natural waters. |
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Keywords: | Piezoelectric quartz crystals HPLC Inorganic mercury Methylmercury Natural waters |
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