The determination of methylmercury MeHg in fish

A very large number of fish samples were analyzed using this instrumental methodology, with a high degree of success, reproducibility, accuracy, and overall precision. The GC sat directly underneath the DCP plasma region, without lifting the DCP off the laboratory bench surface. That is, there is sufficient dead space in the SpectraSpan Illb unit so 

There were certain seemingly obvious advantages to this particular GC-DCP interfaced arrangement, especially the ability to avoid any heated transfer lines. That is, as soon as the chromatographic effluents left the GC column, they were immediately transfered into the plasma plume region, and thus there was virtually no lag time. There was 

The overall GC-DCP results for MeHg in fish samples demonstrated accurate, precise, and reproducible determinations, day-to-day and within-day. A comparison of total Hg levels in the same fish samples has shown that, in general, they are higher than those determined by GC-DCP which only showed one Hg containing species, MeHg. There may very well be other, perhaps nonvolatile Hg species, such as inorganic Hg, which would not gas chromatograph. Additional sample preparation 

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