The cyclic renewable mercury film silver based electrode for determination of manganese(II) traces using anodic stripping voltammetry

Application a new type of working electrode – cyclic renewable mercury film silver based electrode (Hg(Ag)FE) – for manganese(II) traces detection via differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DP ASV) is reported. The preparation of the Hg(Ag)FE is very simple and economically more acceptable; the electrode has a very good stability, and the renovation of the surface is easy. The Hg(Ag)FE electrode is characterized by very good surface reproducibility (⩽2%) and long-term stability (more than 2000 measurement cycles). The effects of various factors such as: pre-concentration potential and time, pulse height, step potential, surface areas of the working electrode are optimized. The calibration graph is linear from 10 nM (0.55 μg L−1) to over 260 nM (14.3 μg L−1) for an accumulation time of 15 s, with correlation coefficient of 0.9995. For a Hg(Ag)FE with a surface area of 7.1 mm2 the detection limit for an accumulation time of 120 s is as low as 0.3 nM (16 ng L−1). The repeatability of the method at a concentration level of the analyte as low as 50 nM 2.7 μg L−1, expressed as RSD is 2.6% (n = 7). The proposed method was successfully applied and validated by studying the certified reference material TMRAIN-95 and simultaneously recovery of Mn(II) from spiked water and snow samples.