Improved cold-vapor atomic absorption technique for the microdetermination of total and inorganic mercury in...

An improved technique for the determination of inorganic and total mercury in human blood, hair, urine and tissue samples by the Magos methods, based on the use of a new reaction vessel, is described. With this vessel, the sample throughput is tripled, the amount of sample and concomitant reagents required are reduced by a factor of five, the precision, accuracy and sensitivity are measurably improved and the technique in amenable to automation.