Improving detection of toxic metals in the environment and trace elements in medical samples is often time-consuming and, worse, reagent demanding, as well as potentially having false positives as samples become contaminated by pre-treatment.Portuguese researchers have now overcome these drawbacks by using an online sample pre-treatment method.
The team has coupled an online high-intensity focused ultrasound system with a more conventional analytical technique, which they say is greener than conventional approaches because it needs less reagents but more importantly avoids contamination and cuts the amount of time taken to analyse metals such as mercury in water and urine samples. The approach should be generally applicable, the researchers say. You can read the full analysis of this research in the latest news round up from David Bradley at spectroscopyNOW.com