Direct determination of mercury in blood by use of sodium borohydride reduction and atomic absorption spectrophotometry.

A method is presented for the rapid determination of total mercury in blood. The reagent used is alkaline sodium borohydride, and no digestion of the sample is needed. The detection limit and sensitivity are 1.15 and 1.59 ng of Hg, respectively. The method gives reproducible results (the CV ranged from 5.3 to 6.7% for low and high mercury blood samples, respectively), comparable to those obtained by the digestion method. The mean analytical recoveries of added mercuric chloride and methylmercuric chloride were 106.65 and 99.02%, respectively. Other advantages of the method are freedom from contamination encountered with digestion methods and elimination of matrix effects.