title: On-line high-performance liquid-chromatographic separation and cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometric determination of methylmercury and inorganic mercury.
abstract: A reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry (CV-AAS) detection is developed for mercury speciation. In this paper, the efficiency of tetrabutylammonium bromide reagent and sodium chloride in a methanol-water mixture as mobile phase is evaluated for HPLC separation of methylmercury and inorganic mercury coupled with on-line CV-AAS determination. Both mercury species are separated on a reversed-phase C(18) column. Several parameters (e.g. composition and flow-rate of mobile phase) are investigated for the optimization of HPLC separations. CV-AAS technique parameters are also studied for their effect on sensitivity (sodium borohydride and sodium hydroxide concentrations in the reducing agent, reducing agent flow-rate, length of the reduction coil and nitrogen flow-rate). Quantitative recoveries for both inorganic mercury and methylmercury are obtained from a spiked natural water sample.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Quimica Analitica y Alimentaria, Area Quimica Analitica, Universidad de Vigo, Facultad de Ciencias (Quimica), As Lagoas-Marcosende s/n, 36200 Vigo, Spain.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Río-Segade
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bendicho