Routine, automated determination of inorganic and total mercury in multimedia using cold vapour atomic absorption spectrometry

A routine, automated analytical method for simultaneous determination of total and inorganic mercury by cold vapour atomic absorption spectrometry in multimedia is described. Excellent accuracy and precision results were obtained with human hair certified reference materials namely, BCR-397 and IAEA-086. The reproducibility relative standard deviation for total mercury was 4% and 22%, respectively. The limit of detection for total and inorganic mercury was 0.2 μg/g hair. The described method has been successfully applied in determination of total and inorganic mercury as well as organic mercury in human hair, urine and fish tissue samples.