Determination of mercury species in fish samples by hyphenated technique

In the proposed study a novel analytical procedure was developed for extraction and speciation of mercury in fish samples. The method consists of the recovery of mercury species by microwave assisted extraction at mild conditions (60 °C and pH 2.0) in 2 min. Species separation was accomplished by hyphenation of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The use of organic-rich mobile phase and the oxygen addition into plasma allowed species separation in 4 min. Limit of detection for the method was calculated as 0.2 and 0.1 ng/g for inorganic mercury and methylmercury, respectively. The method was successfully applied to certified reference materials and some commercialized fish samples from Black Sea.