A rapid method for the determination of mercury in mainstream cigarette smoke by two-stage amalgamation cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry

Abstract

A rapid method for the determination of mercury in mainstream cigarette smoke was developed utilizing reusable gold–platinum gauze to collect vapor phase mercury. Either an electrostatic precipitator or a Cambridge filter is used to remove the particulate phase of cigarette smoke, followed by a second Cambridge filter to further absorb volatile organic components. The vapor phase mercury is selectively trapped onto the gold–platinum gauze and is then determined by two-stage amalgamation cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry (CVAAS) without matrix interference. One of the major advantages of this method is the avoidance of lengthy sample preparation procedures, which are required when using liquid impinger traps. Only one cigarette is required for smoke generation because of the preconcentration of mercury before quantitation and the enhanced sensitivity of amalgamation CVAAS. The limit of detection is 0.04 ng. The analytical precision of elemental mercury is 6% at 0.1 ng and 0.3% at 10 ng in terms of relative standard deviation. For the 1R4F reference cigarette smoked under the FTC smoking regime and an alternative smoking regime, the vapor phase mercury in the mainstream smoke is 5.0 ± 0.4 ng per cigt (n = 20) and 7.4 ± 0.4 ng per cigt (n = 10), respectively. The recovery of fortified sample matrix is 97 ± 8% (n = 5) for FTC smoking regime and 96 ± 4% (n = 5) for the alternative smoking regime. The analytical results of the 1R4F reference cigarette were in good agreement with those obtained by the conventional liquid impinger method.