On-line coupling of flow injection displacement sorption preconcentration to high-performance liquid chromatography for speciation analysis of mercury in seafood

A simple and cost-effective method for speciation analysis of trace mercury in seafood was developed by on-line coupling flow injection microcolumn displacement sorption preconcentration to high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with UV detection. The methodology involved the presorption of the Cu-PDC (pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate) chelate onto a microcolumn packed with a cigarette filter sorbent, simultaneous preconcentration of Hg(II), methylmercury (MeHg), ethylmercury (EtHg), and phenylmercury (PhHg) onto the microcolumn through a displacement reaction with the presorbed Cu-PDC, and their subsequent elution from the microcolumn for on-line HPLC separation. Interferences from heavy metal ions with lower stability of their PDC chelates relative to Cu-PDC were minimized without the need of any masking agents. With the consumption of 4.0 ml of sample solution, the enrichment factors were about 80. The detection limits were 10–25 ng g−1 (as Hg) in fresh tissue. Precision (R.S.D. (%), n=5) ranged from 2 to 3% at the 500 μg l−1 (as Hg) level. The developed technique was validated by analyzing a certified reference material (DORM-2, dogfish-muscle), and was shown to be useful for mercury speciation in real seafood samples.