As more emphasis is placed on the monitoring of mercury emissions, both private and public institutions are looking at characterizing soil, sediments, and waste water samples. Contaminated soil has to be excavated and remediated, or depending on the level of contamination, disposed of as hazardous waste. Several methods are available for mercury analysis in environmental samples. However, most of these methods require elaborate preparation procedures that are labor-intensive and subsequently expensive.

Direct mercury analysis is an alternative to these methods and has been used successfully to determine total mercury in environmental samples. This white paper describes how efficient, accurate, and fast direct mercury analysis results are.