Approach for Mercury Speciation Analysis by High Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry

An interface technique coupled high performance liquid chromatography with atomic fluorescence spectrometry for mercury speciation analysis is established. The separation and determination conditions of methylmercury, inorganic mercury and ethylmercury on high performance liquid chromatography coupled atomic fluorescence detector are discussed. In order to obtain satisfying chromatogram, operational conditions such as mobile phase composition, concentration of oxidant and reducing agent, flow rate of carrier gas, length of UV tube and so on were optimized. Under the optimized conditions , the relative standard deviations ( RSD ) for the determination of methyl-, ethyl- and organic mercury are 2. 0% , 2. 4% and 2. 9% ( n = 7 ) , respectively. The linear range for all the species is between 10 and 1000 pg/L, while the detection limits are : 3 p.g/L, 2 ii,g/L and 4 pig/L respectively. The proposed method has been applied for determination of methyl-mercury in Rapana Venosa sample and the recovery for methylmercu