Flow injection analysis of mercury using 4-(dimethylamino) benzaldehyde-4-ethylthiosemicarbazone as the ionophore of a coated wire electrode.

A flow injection analysis (FIA) incorporating a thiosemicarbazone-based coated wire electrode (CWE) was developed method for the determination of mercury(II). A 0.1 M KNO(3) carrier stream with pH between 1 and 5 and flow rate of 1 mL·min(-1) were used as optimum parameters. A linear plot within the concentration range of 5 × 10(-6)–0.1 M Hg(II), slope of 27.8 ± 1 mV per decade and correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.984 were obtained. The system was successfully applied for the determination of mercury(II) in dental amalgam solutions and spiked environmental water samples. Highly reproducible measurements with relative standard deviation (RSD < 1% (n = 3)) were obtained, giving a typical throughput of 30 samples·h(-1).