Modified MSIS chamber as novel gas-liquid separator coupled with photochemical vapor generation of trace mercury with MP-AES detection

Abstract

New hyphenation of continuous flow photochemical vapor generator (PVG) to modified multimode sample introduction system (MSIS) used as gas-liquid separator and microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry (MP-AES) was proposed for analysis of trace mercury. The widened MSIS bottom inlet contributes to the increase of the Hg0 mass transfer in the gas-liquid separator allowing the mercury determination by MP-AES. After optimizing the PVG reactor conditions and MP-AES instrument parameters a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.25 ppb was obtained for Hg2+. The applicability of the PVG-MSIS-MP-AES method was subsequently demonstrated for trace mercury analysis in two soil CRMs - ERM-CC135a (Contaminated Brickworks soil) and CRM005 (Sewage Amended soil).