Determination of total mercury in fish: an improved method

Abstract

A simple method is described for the rapid digestion of fish for total mercury determination by cold-vapour atomic-absorption spectrophotometry at 253.7 nm. A significant departure from previous methods is the use of concentrated hydrochloric acid together with sulphuric and nitric acids in the open digestion of samples. The digestion of up to 3 g of fish at 85–100 °C is completed within 30 min and good recoveries of mercury are obtained from NBS Albacore tuna and fish samples spiked with inorganic mercury. The detection limit is 0.01 µg g^–1 of mercury.