Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The determination of mercury in whole blood and urine by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

1999; Elsevier BV; Volume: 54; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0584-8547(99)00057-9

1873-3565

David E. Nixon, Mary F. Burritt, Thomas P. Moyer,

Forensic Toxicology and Drug Analysis

An inductively coupled mass spectrometric (ICP-MS) method for the determination of mercury in whole blood and urine was developed. Gold and dichromate in hydrochloric acid were evaluated as agents to reduce mercury spray chamber memory. Dichromate with hydrochloric acid was found to be superior to gold. We evaluated the rapid introduction of sample to promote equilibrium and the rapid introduction of wash solutions after the sample analyses to minimize mercury memory. This ‘fast pump’ mode (2.5 ml/min) was used for 20 s at the beginning and end of each sample-wash cycle. The mercury detection limit is 0.15 μg/l in the original sample before dilution. Regressions and correlation coefficients for ICP-MS vs. target concentrations for interlaboratory comparison samples from the Centre de Toxicologie du Quebec were: whole blood: y=1.0x−0.6; r=0.9801; n=27 and urine: y=0.84x+8; r=0.9915; n=42. Patient samples were analyzed by ICP-MS and cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry (CVAAS). Regressions and correlations for patient samples were: urines: y=0.93x+1; r=0.8763; n=456 and whole blood: y=1.1x+0.2; r=0.9357; n=251. ICP-MS correlation with CVAAS for 29 urine samples containing 15–150 μg Hg/specimen was: y=0.94x+4; r=0.9864.