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Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Quantitative Detection of Trace Explosive Vapors by Programmed Temperature Desorption Gas Chromatography-Electron Capture Detector
Published on: July 25, 2014
Solution cathode glow discharge induced vapor generation of mercury and its application to mercury speciation by high
Qian He1, Zhenli Zhu, Shenghong Hu
1State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China.
Abstract:
A novel solution cathode glow discharge (SCGD) induced vapor generation was developed as interface to on-line couple high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS) for the speciation of inorganic mercury (Hg(2+)), methyl-mercury (MeHg) and ethyl-mercury (EtHg). The decomposition of organic mercury species and the reduction of Hg(2+) could be completed in one step with this proposed SCGD induced vapor generation system. The vapor generation is extremely rapid and therefore is easy to couple with flow injection (FI) and HPLC. Compared with the conventional HPLC-CV-AFS hyphenated systems, the proposed HPLC-SCGD-AFS system is very simple in operation and eliminates auxiliary redox reagents. Parameters influencing mercury determination were optimized, such as concentration of formic acid, discharge current and argon flow rate. The method detection limits for HPLC-SCGD-AFS system were 0.67 μg L(-1) for Hg(2+), 0.55 μg L(-1) for MeHg and 1.19 μg L(-1) for EtHg, respectively. The developed method was validated by determination of certified reference material (GBW 10029, tuna fish) and was further applied for the determination of mercury in biological samples.
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