Ion Mobility Spectrometry of Heavy Metals

A simple, fast, and inexpensive method was developed for detecting heavy metals via the ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) in the negative mode. In this method, Cl(-) ion produced by the thermal ionization of NaCl is employed as the dopant or the ionizing reagent to ionize heavy metals. In practice, a solution of mixed heavy metals and NaCl salts was directly deposited on a Nichrome filament and electrically heated to vaporize the salts. This produced the IMS spectra of several heavy-metal salts, including CdCl2, ZnSO4, NiCl2, HgSO4, HgCl2, PbI2, and Pb(Ac)2. For each heavy metal (M), one or two major peaks were observed, which were attributed to M·Cl(-) or [M·NaCl]Cl(-)complexes. The method proved to be useful for the analysis of mixed heavy metals. The absolute detection limits measured for ZnSO4 and HgSO4 were 0.1 and 0.05 μg, respectively.