Determination of thimerosal in pharmaceutical industry effluents andriver waters by HPLC coupled to atomic fluorescence spectrometrythrough post-column UV-assisted vapor generationGimena

ACOSTA, GIMENA; SPISSO, A; FERNANDEZ, LILIANA; MARTINEZ, LUIS; PACHECO, P. ; GIL, RAÚL

JOURNAL OF PHARMACEUTICAL AND BIOMEDICAL ANALYSIS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2015 vol. 106 p. 79 - 84

0731-7085

tA high performance liquid chromatography coupled with atomic fluorescence spectrometry methodfor the determination of thimerosal (sodium ethylmercury thiosalicylate, C9H9HgNaO2S), ethylmercury,and inorganic mercury is proposed. Mercury vapor is generated by the post-column reduction of mercuryspecies in formic acid media using UV-radiation. Thimerosal is quantitatively converted to Hg(II) followedby the reduction of Hg(II) to Hg(0). This method is applied to the determination of thimerosal (THM),ethylmercury (EtHg) and inorganic Hg in samples of a pharmaceutical industry effluent, and in waters ofthe San Luis River situated in the west side of San Luis city (Middle West, Argentine) where the effluentsare dumped. The limit of detections, calculated on the basis of the 3 _ criterion, where 0.09, 0.09 and0.07 _g L−1for THM, EtHg(II) and for Hg(II), respectively. Linearity was attained from levels close to thedetection limit up to at least 100 _g L−1.