Analytical Sciences

Simplified Mercury Extraction from Coal Fly Ash for Quantification of Total Mercury by ELISA-based Immunoassay

Yasumoto DATE,* Hiroyuki MASAKI,* Arata AOTA,* Kazuhiro SASAKI,* Yukie NAMIKI,** Thomas R. GLASS,*** and Naoya OHMURA*

*Environmental Science Research Laboratory, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, 1646 Abiko, Abiko, Chiba 270-1194, Japan
**Electric Power Engineering Systems Co., Ltd., 1646 Abiko, Abiko, Chiba 270-1194, Japan
***Sapidyne Instruments Inc., 700 W. Diamond St, Boise, ID 83705, USA

A simplified two-step mercury extraction procedure enabled the selective and reproducible mercury recovery from actual coal fly ash (CFA). The optimized extraction procedure involving conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)-based immunoassay allowed the ultra-sensitive quantification of total mercury content in CFA. The total mercury content of 41 CFA samples were successfully determined using the above-mentioned method, and the results were in agreement with those obtained by standard instrumental analysis (thermal decomposition atomic absorption spectrometry) within a 15% coefficient of variation. Our method for total mercury quantification is not only simple but suitable for management of the mercury content at coal-fired electric power plants and landfill sites, which deal with large amounts of waste CFA.

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