Simple Acid Digestion Procedure for the Determination of Total Mercury in Plankton by Cold Vapor Atomic Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Simple Acid Digestion Procedure for the Determination of Total Mercury in Plankton by Cold Vapor Atomic Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Plankton, at the bottom of the food web, play a central role in the entry of mercury into the aquatic biota. To investigate their role in mercury uptake, reliable analytical procedures for Hg analysis are highly sought. Wet digestion procedures for determining total mercury in different biological m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Methods and protocols Vol. 5; no. 2; p. 29
Main Authors: Santos, João Pereira, Mehmeti, Lirie, Slaveykova, Vera I
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 25-03-2022
MDPI
Subjects:
Acids
BCR-414
Cold
Decomposition
Digestion
Fluorescence spectroscopy
Food chains
Food webs
Gold
IAEA-450
Laboratories
Mercury
microalgae
Plankton
Protocol
Reagents
Ultrasonic imaging
Vapors
wet acid digestion
zooplankton
United States > US
Germany
BCR-414
CVAFS
total mercury
IAEA-450
wet acid digestion
zooplankton
microalgae
plankton
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Summary:Plankton, at the bottom of the food web, play a central role in the entry of mercury into the aquatic biota. To investigate their role in mercury uptake, reliable analytical procedures for Hg analysis are highly sought. Wet digestion procedures for determining total mercury in different biological matrices have been established since years, however only few studies focused on planktonic samples. In the present work, a simple and cost-effective wet digestion method was developed for the determination of total mercury in samples of small plankton material using a cold vapor atomic fluorescence spectroscopy (CVAFS). The optimization of the digestion method was achieved by using glass vessels with Teflon caps, low amount of acids (3 mL / 65% HNO or 3 mL 50% / HNO ), a constant temperature of 85 °C, the presence and absence of pre-ultrasound treatment, and a continuous digestion period (12 h). Certified reference materials IAEA-450 (unicellular alga Scenedesmus obliquus) and BRC-414 (plankton matrix) were used to optimize and validate the digestion method. The recovery efficiency of the proposed method for IAEA-450 and BCR-414 (3.1 mg and 21.5 mg) ranged between 94.1 ± 7.6% and 97.2 ± 4.6%. The method displayed a good recovery efficiency and precision for plankton matrices of low size. Thus, allowing better digestion of planktonic samples for mercury analysis using CVAFS techniques.
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ISSN:2409-9279
2409-9279
DOI:10.3390/mps5020029