The detection of toxic trace metals in the environment is a highly important yet challenging analytical problem. Because of the growing awareness of environmental mercury pollution and its high toxicity, it is becoming more urgent to develop highly sensitive techniques for the detection of Hg (1). Spectroscopic techniques such as coldvapor atomic fluorescence spectrometry (CV-AFS),(2) cold-vapor atomic absorption spectrometry (CV-AAS),(3) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry

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... (4) have been used successfully for the detection of mercury. However, all of these techniques require relatively large sample volumes for analysis and are also not suitable for on-line monitoring.