A FACTORIAL DESIGN TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF SOME VARIABLES IN THE LONG-TERM STABILITY OF METHYLMERCURY STANDARD SOLUTIONS IN WATER

A factorial composite design has been employed for a rapid exploration of the effect of some parameters on the stability of spiked methylmer cury iodide solutions. The analysis has been performed by capillary ga s chromatography with electron-capture detection. The results obtained by the factorial and the univariate methods are in a good agreement. Although, the factorial design does not allow a discrimination of the significance among the same kind of factors, it greatly reduces the nu mber of experiments when the different variables are investigated.