REFERENCE ONLY ABSTRACT MERCURY SPECIES IN NATURAL GAS CONDENSATE

The presence of ultra-trace levels of mercury in industrial gas and condensate streams is a cause of both environmental and production conceriL The toxic nature of the element, in all forms, together with its ability to shut-down large processing plants dictates a need for its accurate and precise measurement. The study which investigated the recoveiy of various mercury species, spiked into synthetic and real condensate sanqples using conventional and new digestion and/or extraction techniques showed recovery was dependent upon the speciation. Using the most efficient technique, L<ysteme with persulphate, recoveries of over 90 % were obtained for diphenyl mercury, ethyl and phenyl mercury chlorides and mercury chloride. The recovery of 15% for the in^rtant dimethyl mercury species limits the use of this technique. A novel technique has been developed for the determination of total mercury in con^lex liquid hydrocarbons. San^les (up to 1.0 ml) were vaporised (400**C) and swept through a gold-coated silica trap maintained at 200°C, which retained all mercury species and discarded the matrix. The trap when heated to 900°C released the mercury for measurement by atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS). The recoveries for eight mercury specie