Preliminary exploration of direct mercury speciation in solid samples by using thermal release coupled to electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry.

It is known that monitoring of mercury and notably its species is very important to assess their impact and distribution in the environment. In this regard, the development of a methodology for mercury speciation in natural and man-made media is of particular importance. There are a variety of studies in this area associated with the application of thermal release in combination with electrothermal atomic absorption detection for direct mercury speciation in solid samples without preliminary extraction of analytes.