Speciation of Mercury Compounds in Biological Samples Using GC-AA

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Abstract
An interfaced GC-thermal atomizer AA system has been developed and used for the speciation and determination of volatile mercury compounds in biological fluids, perspiration and urine. The interfaced system is highly selective to mercury compounds and has high sensitivity. No sample preparation was necessary, avoiding losses during pretreatment procedures such as the cold vapor technique. The levels of inorganic mercury found in urine were from 0.0 to 3.3 ppm, and 0.0 to 0.6 ppm for sweat. Total mercury ranged from 0.6 to 3.9 ppm in urine and 0.2 to 1.0 ppm in sweat. The results also indicated the presence of unidentified non-volatile mercury in the samples. However, inorganic mercury seemed to be the major form of excretion of mercury from human bodies.