Green preparation of CuI particles in dielectric barrier discharge for colorimetric determination of trace mercury in comparison with atomic fluorescence spectrometric determination

Abstract The present work describes a solution-free method for preparation of copper(I) iodide (CuI) particles on copper wire by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). The prepared material was applied to develop a colorimetric semi-quantitative analysis for fast screening analysis of trace mercury (Hg) by combing mercury vapor generation with Hg/CuI chromogenic reaction. Under the optimized conditions, the proposed method was successfully explored for visual determination of trace Hg in natural water and certified reference samples, and the results were in good agreement with cold vapor generation-atomic fluorescence spectrometry (CVG-AFS). It was proved to be a green, fast, visual and portable method for the determination of trace Hg in these real samples. It is a potential field analytical method for fast screening analysis.