A very simple and fast analytical method for atmospheric particulate-bound mercury determination

Abstract

In this paper, we present the results obtained for the determination of particulate-bound mercury (PHg) collected on a glass fiber filter by a combustion-AAS technique using a Direct Mercury Analyzer® (DMA-80 TRICELL; Milestone Inc., Italy). The accuracy of the method was demonstrated by comparison with the U.S. EPA IO-5 method. Sampling was always performed in duplicate using two identical sampling devices arranged side by side. The limit of quantitation of the proposed method was 0.22 ng, which was in the same order as that observed for the U.S. EPA method (0.23 ng), and corresponds to 5.0 pg m⁻³ for a sampling flow of 30 L min⁻¹ and a 24 h sampling period. For paired sampling filters, the precision was <10% for PHg concentrations in the range of 6.5 to 29.3 pg m⁻³. For triplicate filters spiked with 0.3000 and 1.000 ng Hg(II), the recovery was (97 ± 2)% and (85 ± 9)%, respectively. The accuracy was checked by analyzing paired sampling filters by both methods (DMA and U.S. EPA) and did not show any significant difference (p > 0.05).