Abstract
An atomic fluorescence photometer with nondispersive system which is capable of the determination of mercury at the pico grams level found in atmosphere or natural water has been designed. Mercury was released from solution by reduction-aeration method and collected on gold wire, forming an amalgam. When the system was completely replaced with argon, the gold absorber was heated to 700°C. The mercury liberated from gold was then transferred by the argon to the special designed flow type fluorescence cell, and atomic fluorescence intensity was detected with solar blind photomultiplier. The presence of quenching agent such as nitrogen reduced the resonance fluorescence intensity and the accuracy of its measurement. Therefore, the interference from this quenching necessitates the removal of nitrogen in the system before the gold absorber was heated. The detection limit was estimated to be 0.005 ng (S/N=2) and the coefficient of variation was found to be 3.0 % for 1 ng of mercury.