Determination of mercury in industrial workplaces by collection on activated carbon, solvent extraction and cold-vapour atomic-absorption spectrometry

Abstract

A method for the determination of mercury in workplace environments in a chlor-alkali plant was optimized. Mercury was collected on activated carbon with a personal sampling pump at a flow-rate of 0.5 l/min, then the carbon was mineralized by heating with potassium permanganate and sulphuric acid. The mercuric ion was next chelated with ammonium pyrrolidinedithiocarbamate and extracted with methyl isobutyl ketone at acidic pH (1.6–5). The chelate in the extract was decomposed with sulphuric acid and the mercuric ion reduced to the metal with stannous chloride. The mercury was determined by coldvapour atomic-absorption spectrometry (CVAAS). The calibration graph was linear up to 5 ng/ml Hg in the initial solution, the relative standard deviation was 4.5% (for 2 ng/ml) and the detection limit was 0.14 ng/ml. All the figures of merit are referred to the initial sample. The proposed method gave good accordance with CVAAS without extraction.