DIN EN ISO 12846:2012-08

This International Standard specifies two methods for the determination of mercury in different types of water (including waste water after appropriate pre-digestion). For the first method described in Clause 6, an enrichment step by amalgamation of the Hg on e. g. a gold/platinum absorber is used. For the method given in Clause 7, the enrichment step is omitted.The method with enrichment has usually a concentration range from 0,002 µg/l to 1 µg/l and the method without enrichment starts at 0,1 µg/l as the lower limit of the working range. It is up to the user to decide whether higher concentrations should be determined by omitting the enrichment step and/or by diluting the sample(s). The sensitivity of both methods is dependent on the selected operating conditions. In general the determination of trace concentrations of Hg by AAS is highly depending on clean operating conditions in the lab and on high purity chemicals with negligible low Hg blanks.