Trace determination of mercury in food using high-pressure digestion coupling with atomic fluorescence spectrometry

Objective To establish a rapid,precise and sensitive method for the trace determination of mercury in food by high-pressure digestion coupling with atomic fluorescence spectrometer approach.Methods After a pretreatment with nitric acid/hydrogen peroxide high-pressure digestion system,atomic fluorescence spectrometer methodology was used to determine mercury in food.Results In the optimized conditions,the detection limit for mercury was 0.015μg/L and the relative coefficient was 0.9999.Recovery rates of spiked samples was 96.8% to 103.2% and the relative standard deviation was less than 3.5%.Conclusion The present method is precise,rapid and sensitive enough.