Development of a portable analyzer using solid-phase microextraction coupled with thermal desorption digitally-controlled plasma optical emission spectrometry for the determination of mercury volatile compounds released from sediments

Abstract

Novel multi-species analyzer based on thermal desorption and digitally-controlled plasma optical emission spectrometry followed by solid-phase microextraction has been developed for determining various organometallics in sediment samples. A helium plasma source operating at 10 kHz and an integrated small-sized spectrometer with a charge-coupled device detector is installed for cost-effective atomic emission measurement and signal acquisition. Moreover, the analyzer size of a portable device is achieved, while the system is capable of absorbing large amounts of measurement data. Specifically, the analyzer has been applied for the speciation of mercury species in sediments. Method detection limits for MeHg and Hg²⁺ are 35.4 and 9.6 ng L⁻¹. Thus, sediments containing above 0.2 µg kg⁻¹ of mercury can be analyzed with precision 1–3.5% of RSD. The developed methods are validated by the analysis of estuarine sediment certified reference material ERM CC580, GBW 07405 Chinese soil. [AQ1]

Keywords:

• Methylmercury
• microplasma technology
• portable instrumentation
• solid-phase microextraction
• volatile metallic compounds

Additional information

Funding

This project is financed in the framework of grant entitled: “Production and attestation of new types of reference materials crucial for achieving European accreditation for Polish industrial laboratories” attributed by the National Center for Research and Development, Poland.