Abstract
The extraction of mercury as its dithizone complex into carbontetrachloride has been investigated for a wide range of reagent concentrations and from various acid solutions. By utilizing the alumina column chromatographic method in which chloroform is used as eluant to separate mercury dithizonate from the other dithizonates and an excess of dithizone, it was possible to get essentially complete separations of microgram quantities of mercury from 1g of copper. In that procedure the mercury dithizonate was not retained on alumina column while the elements extracted from acid solution were strongly adsorbed on alumina column. Optimum conditions for separation of 0.110μg mercury were as follows : column, 0.7×5cm; alumina, 100/325 mesh and 10% moisture content; eluant, chloroform, effluent less than 2ml. The absorbance was measured at 490mμ against a water blank. For 1μg and 5μg mercury, the coefficients of variation were 9.2% and 5.1% at 5% risk, respectively. The method is extremely rapid (about 10 minutes) and adaptable to small scale procedures.
