Articles
Mercury Analysis in Water – How to Stabilise Mercury in Water
Posted by: chrisball | Posted on: March 27th, 2012 | 0 Comments
Nitric acid is commonly used to stabilise trace metals however it is not particularly helpful for mercury at low levels. Halogens such as chloride or bromide are more preferable in that they form a very stable complex with mercury therefore to keep mercury in the solution. Acidify your sample with hydrochloric acid is one of the easiest way to stabilise your water samples. If you combine hydrochloric acid and bromine which forms BrCl in the solution, it not only stabilise mercury, also digest the sample at the same time. We would recommend to use these two methods to preserve mercury in your water sample.
Mercury Analysis in Water – The Purity of Your Chemicals
Posted by: chrisball | Posted on: March 23rd, 2012 | 1 Comments
In order to measure the mercury levels in your sample correctly and reliably, the mercury level in your reagents should be at least less than half of the mercury concentrations in the sample. For water analysis, mercury is usually found at 1 ng per litre level, which means the mercury background value in all the chemical we use combined needs to be less than 0.5 ng per litre. That shows the purity of the chemical is absolutely critical for mercury analysis in water samples.
