Abstract
Estuarine and riverine sediments from fourlocations showing different sediment structures wereanalysed as fresh, thawed and lyophilised samples fortotal mercury (TotHg) and methylmercury (MeHg)concentrations, and results were compared to addresseffects of sample preservation on Hg speciation. TotHg was measured by cold vapour atomic absorptionspectrometry (CVAAS). MeHg was isolated bydistillation and ion-exchange and analysed by coldvapour atomic fluorescence spectrometry (CVAFS) afterpreconcentration on a gold trap. No loss of TotHg norMeHg due to lyophilisation was found. Concentrationsof TotHg and MeHg respectively ranged from 92 to 267ng g-1 dw and 1.1 to 2.9 ng g-1 dw in freshsamples, from 94 to 215 ng g-1 dw and 1.1 to 2.8ng g-1 dw in thawed samples, and from 100 to 256ng g-1 dw and 1.2 to 3.1 ng g-1 dw inlyophilised samples. Lyophilised samples showedbetter homogeneity and better MeHg analysisreproducibility compared with wet samples.
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Muhaya, B.B.M., Leermakers, M. & Baeyens, W. Influence of Sediment Preservation on Total Mercury and Methylmercury Analyses. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution 107, 277–288 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019886606856
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019886606856