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Updated: Oct 17, 2026

An Anaerobic Biosensor Assay for the Detection of Mercury and Cadmium
Published on: December 17, 2018
Flow injection analysis of mercury(II) in pharmaceuticals based on enzyme inhibition and biosensor detection
P Bertocchi1, E Ciranni, D Compagnone
1Laboratorio di Chimica del Farmaco, Istituto Superiore di Sanita, Rome, Italy.
Abstract:
An enzymatic amperometric procedure for measurement of mercury(II) in pharmaceuticals, based on the inhibition of invertase and on a glucose electrode was studied. Analytical parameters for measurements in batch and flow injection analysis (FIA) have been optimised. Mercury(II) was detected in the 10-60 ppb range with RSD < or =2%. A sample throughput of 6 h(-1) for batch and 15 h(-1) for FIA was obtained. The total mercury(II) from thimerosal (thiomersal, sodium ethylmercurithiosalicylate) in eye-drop samples was measured with the amperometric procedure after oxidative cleavage treatment. Results for both batch and FIA procedures correlated well with atomic absorbtion spectroscopy (AAS) data.
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