Articles
Mercury Analysis in Water – How to Prepare Your Reductant
Posted by: chrisball | Posted on: March 21st, 2012 | 0 Comments
Very often I hear users complaining about things like “why does my Hg signal keeps going down”, “unstable signal” or “the background is too high or too noisy”, they could be all coming from one source — your reductant. You probably haven’t prepared your reductant correctly. If your gas liquid separator is turning white or even yellow which means you are almost definitely doing it wrong. A key point of preparing the reductant is to boil Ti(II) chloride in concentrated hydrochloric acid so that it can dissolve properly. After boiling, the solution should be diluted with deionized water then purge with argon, for the best results, overnight.
Mercury Analysis in Water – Cleaning your containers
Posted by: chrisball | Posted on: March 19th, 2012 | 0 Comments
For trace element analysis in order to clean your containers, a common practice is to soak the containers in nitric acid. Acid bath is very commonly used in many labs however this is not suitable for mercury analysis at pg/g level. The mercury level in the acid bath can be a few thousand times higher than in the sample. By soaking your containers in the acid bath, the labels, the pen marks, the entire exterior will contaminate the bath and further contaminate other containers. The acidic vapour generated by the acid bath will also pollute the air or corrode the instruments in the lab. An easy way to clean the containers is to top up the container with deionized water to almost full, then add small amount of hydrochloric acid and bromide/bromate solution. Bear in mind that this procedure should be done in the fume cupboard. After adding the chemicals, fill the container up to the neck with deionized water then cap it tightly. Let it soak overnight. In the next morning, or before you need to use it, use weak reductant to decolorize the solution inside the containers, then wash the container with clean deionized water. Your container is now clean and ready for use.
