Determination of Mercury in Biological Samples by Flameless Atomic Absorption After Combustion and Mercury-Silver Amalgamation

Abstract A method is described that combines combustion with amalgamation of mercury with silver for determining low levels of mercury by flameless atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Samples are burned with oxygen in a combustion flask and the combustion products are dissolved in dilute HCl. Mercury is extracted from solution by amalgamating on a silver wire and then volatilized into an atomic absorption cell by electrically heating the silver wire. An average recovery of 91.4% was obtained from tissue samples spiked with inorganic and organic mercury compounds at levels of 0.01 to 1.0 ppm mercury. The coefficient of variation for duplicate determinations was 14.2%. The method is relatively simple and is applicable to any material that can be burned by the combustion procedure.