Use of an aminated Amberlite XAD-4 column coupled to flow injection cold vapour generation atomic absorption spectrometry for mercury speciation in water and fish tissue samples

An aminated Amberlite XAD-resin as a solid phase extractant was tested for speciation of inorganic mercury, Hg (II) and methylmercury, MeHg(I) in water and fish tissue samples. It was found that Hg(II) and MeHg(I) ions could be simultaneously retained by a column filled with AAXAD-4 resin at pH 4 and the sequential quantitative elutions of Hg(II) and MeHg(I) were achieved using 10 mL of 0.1%(m/v) thiourea in 3%(v/v) HCl and 10 mL of 6 mol L-1 HCl, respectively. Hg(II) in the eluent was directly determined and MeHg(I) in the second eluent is quantified using FI-CVG-AAS after its oxidative digestion with KMnO4. The limits of detection for Hg(II) and MeHg(I) ions were found to be 0.148 and 0.157 mu g L-1, respectively. The method was validated by analysing a certified reference material. The relative errors for Hg(II), MeHg(I) and T-Hg were in range of -1.8% and -3.2%.