Nanogram-Level Determination of Total Mercury in Biological Samples by Furnace Combustion, Gold Amalgamation and Gas Phase Detection

Abstract

In order to investigate mercury pollution in humans and animals, a simple and sensitive method for the determination of nanogram levels of total mercury (T-Hg) in extremely small amounts of urine, blood, hair, internal organs and other specimens was established. The proposed method includes furnace combustion under optimum conditions, capture of mercury as gold amalgam and detection of vaporized mercury. The method was successfully applied to the determination of ppb levels of T-Hg in μl or mg amounts of biological samples.