Open digestion of some plant and fungus materials for mercury analysis using different temperatures and sample sizes

Dry samples of lichen, moss and mushroom were treated by open wet digestion at different temperatures and different sample sizes and analyzed for mercury. No temperature (+80°C, +90°C, +105°C) dependent differences were observed for the moss and mushroom analyses. For lichen the variations were larger. In this material the digestion was more efficient at +120°C and +140°C than at lower temperatures. For this matrix the best results were obtained when using smaller samples at higher temperatures. The sample weight seemed to be even more important for the digestion efficiency.