Cost benefits of direct mercury analysis

Many environmental laboratories routinely measuring mercury use a traditional dedicated mercury analyser utilising fluorescence spectrometry CV-AAA or AFS or ICP-MS that are well suited for liquid samples especially those with low mercury levels. For other liquid and solid samples an additional sample preparation step is required such as microwave digestion. Because of the high volatility of mercury, these dissolution techniques can often lead to loss of analyte and poor recoveries if the optimum digestion technology isn’t used, possibly resulting in sample reruns, that can impact laboratory efficiency, operator time, and the overall cost of analysis.

An industry report is available from Analytix that takes a closer look at the running costs of the Milestone DMA-80 Direct Mercury Analyser and how they compare against CV-AAS/AFS and ICP-MS. The study looks at the overall cost of analysis including sample preparation, instrument calibration, and running times and compares productivity between the different techniques with approved methods.

The report shows that the DMA-80 system offers a significant cost saving of almost 90% per sample over traditional CV-AAS/AFS that could translate into a beneficial return on investment particularly for laboratories with a high sample workload.