Solid Phase Photothermo-Induced Chemical Vapor Generation: A New Desorption Method for Mercury Analysis by...

A simple solid phase photothermo-induced chemical vapor generation (SP-PT-CVG) is described and used as an environmentally friendly desorption method for the sensitive determination of mercury in water by direct immersion solid phase microextraction (DI-SPME) atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS). A DI-SPME array equipped with 20 nano-TiO₂-coated tungsten fibers was employed to simultaneously preconcentrate mercury from 20 samples, enabling an extraction throughput of 40 samples per hour. Subsequently, the fibers were drawn from the sample solutions and inserted into an inner tube sealed in a specially designed UV lamp in turn for SP-PT-CVG to generate Hg⁰, which was swept to an AFS detector for its detection. It is worth noting that the tube served as both a vapor generator and a desorption chamber. This proof-of-concept study confirms the feasibility of solid phase CVG. Compared to conventional CVG carried out in the liquid phase, solid phase CVG not only retains the advantages of conventional CVG but also alleviates the matrix interference on vapor generation and preconcentrates analyte prior to vapor generation, improving analytical performance for liquid state samples. DI-SPME-SP-PT-CVG-AFS provides a limit of detection of 2.3 ng L^-1 for mercury determination by AFS. In the proposed method, the combination of DI-SPME and SP-PT-CVG eliminates the tedious derivatization steps required in conventional headspace SPME, thus minimizing toxic reagent consumption and improving extraction throughput. The practicality of DI-SPME-SP-PT-CVG-AFS was evaluated by analyzing two different certified reference materials and river water samples with good spike recoveries (98-107%).