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

ABSTRACT: 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 w/w 65% HNO3 or 3 mL 50% v/v HNO3), a constant temperature

SUBMITTER: Santos JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9029141 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature