Dr Gareth Pearson of Quantitech has published a paper on the technique of direct mercury analysis by thermal decomposition, amalgamation and atomic absorption spectrometry.
In his paper, he discusses the benefits of no sample pre-treatment, increased analysis speed, a reduction in waste production, excellent matrix tolerance and universal calibration.
Dr Pearson believes that this technology presents an attractive alternative to cold vapour techniques involving sample digestion, in a wide range of applications.
Fully automated systems such as the Hydra C (Teledyne Leeman Labs, USA) offer a compact and user friendly approach to direct mercury analysis.
The Paper is available free of charge on the
Quantitech web site