Development of an On-Line Flow Injection Mercury Analyzer for Total Mercury Investigation in Danshuei River Estuary and Adjacent Coastal Area, Taiwan

• Main Authors: Kuo-Chen Li, 李國禎
• Other Authors: Chun-Mao Tseng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/4mx7u5

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 海洋研究所 === 106 === A simple and reliable on-line flow injection mercury analyzer (FI-MA) was successfully developed for investigating total mercury (THg) in Danshuei River estuary and adjacent coastal areas. The FI-MA is a semi-automatic dual-channel detection system which provides simultaneous operation. The FI-MA, based on two-stage amalgamation method and cold vapor atomic fluorescence spectrometry, couples the main analytical steps from aqueous Hg reduction, gas-liquid separation, Au amalgamation, thermal desorption to final detection/ data acquisition. All analytical procedures are on-line performed in closed Teflon tubings, so that errors caused by manual operation or contamination are reduced. The FI-MA provides ease of operation and high analytical performance with an excellent data quality. Simultaneous operation of analysis gives a high sample throughput (~ up to 15 samples per hour). Each run analysis is separately calibrated for utmost accuracy. Here, we report the results of system performance tests and reproducibility comparisons regarding the THg determination in water, sediment and bio-tissue samples. Representative field THg data from May 2003, July 2004, November 2004, January 2005 in Danshui River estuary and adjacent coastal areas are also presented. Each cruise covered four areas that was defined below: estuary, near-shore, off-shore, and area around the outfall pipeline, respectively. High THg concentrations were found at the area around the outfall pipeline among them. In addition, higher THg concentrations in Danshui River coastal were observed than those obtained in East Asia marginal seas. This study further found that the widely used BrCl oxidant for THg analysis could diminish the performance of gold amalgamation. The related mechanisms and causes of interference and solutions were proposed as well.