Determination of organomercury compounds with a miniaturised automated speciation analyser

The automated speciation analyser (ASA) is a newly developed instrument for speciation analysis of environmentally and toxicologically interesting ele ments on routine basis. The instrument is based on a combination of a purge and trap concentrator, an isothermal oven housing a multicapillary column for the separation of the analytes and a miniature microwave induced plasma emission detector. This work describes the optimisation of the ASA for the determination of methylmercury and inorganic mercury leading to absolute d etection limits of 4 and 9 pg for MeHg+ and Hg2+, respectively, and relativ e detection Limits of 0.4 and 0.8 pg ml(-1), which is satisfactory for envi ronmental purposes. Furthermore, this instrument has the advantage of being small, robust and easy to handle and allows fast analysis. The optimised s ystem was validated by the determination of MeHg+ in CRM 464 reference mate rial and demonstrated for the determination of methylmercury and inorganic mercury in North Sea water. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reser ved.