Mercury Analysis in Water - How to Digest Your Sample

http://mercuryanalyser.com/mercury-testing/mercury-analysis-in-water-how-to-stabilise-mercury-in-water/ The method for digesting water sample is called ‘bromination’ method. Bromination is suitable for natural water samples such as river, lake, seawater and rain water etc. The advantage of this method is that it requires very small amount of chemicals hence reduce the contamination to its minimum, and yet it’s very efficient.

For analysis, place a clean bottle on an analytical balance, weight in 49.0 grams of water sample;
add 0.25 ml concentrated hydrochloric acid and 0.25 ml bromide/bromate solution (0.1N) into the bottle
add a few drops of deionized water until it reaches 50.0 grams.
Cap the bottle tightly and leave it for at least 30 min.
This digestion method is also suitable for water samples containing small amount of particulates