On-line determination of mercury(II) by membrane separation flow injection analysis

Nazanin Amini; Terence J Cardwell; Robert W Cattrall; Richard J S Morrison; Spas D Kolev

doi:10.1016/j.talanta.2004.01.014

On-line determination of mercury(II) by membrane separation flow injection analysis

Talanta. 2004 Jul 8;63(4):1069-75. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2004.01.014.

Authors

Nazanin Amini¹, Terence J Cardwell, Robert W Cattrall, Richard J S Morrison, Spas D Kolev

Affiliation

¹ School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic. 3010, Australia.

PMID: 18969535
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2004.01.014

Abstract

A rapid and inexpensive gas-diffusion (GD) flow injection method for the on-line determination of Hg(II) in aqueous samples is described. The analytical procedure involves the injection of a Hg(II) sample into a 1.5M H(2)SO(4) carrier stream which is merged with a reagent stream containing 0.6% SnCl(2) and 1.5M H(2)SO(4). Under these conditions Hg(II) is reduced to metallic mercury which partially evaporates through a Teflon membrane into an acceptor stream containing 1.75x10(-4)M KMnO(4) in 0.3M H(2)SO(4). The decrease in the absorbance of the acceptor stream at 528nm corresponding to the absorption maximum of the permanganate anion can be related to the original concentration of Hg(II) in the sample. The method is characterized by a detection limit of 4mugl(-1) and a sampling frequency of 8h(-1). The flow system was successfully applied to the analysis of river samples spiked with Hg(II).