Simultaneous determination mercury species of Su-He-Xiang-Wan in rat tissues by HPLC-CVG-AFS

A simple and sensitive high performance liquid chromatography-chemical vapour generation-atom fluorescent spectrometry （HPLC-CVG-AFS） method was developed and validated for simultaneous determination mercury species in Su-He-Xiang-Wan （SHXW） and in tissues of rats, respectively. The species of mercury were separated by a Venusil MP-C 18 （5μm, 150 mm×4.6 ram） column with the optimized mobile phase containing 5% （w/v） acetonitrile, 0.01 mol/L L-cysteine and 0.06 moL/L ammonium acetate. The tissues of rats were freeze-dried after giving the medicine for 10 d, and then added into the solution containing 10% （w/v） HC1, 1% （w/v） sulfocarbamide and 0.15% （w/v） KC1 for increasing extraction rate. The resolutions of Hg2＋, MeHg and EtHg were 1.5 and 2.9, respectively. The detection limits of Hg2＋, MeHg and EtHg were 2.0, 1.0 and 0.9 ng/mL, respectively. The relative standard deviation （RSD） of inter- and intra-day precisions ranged from 1.56% to 2.86%. The recovery rates of three different adding level were 87%-101% （n=6）, and the RSDs were smaller than 8.2%. The results show that no MeHg and EtHg were detected in rat tissues. Only soluble mercury （Hg2＋） was determined for the mercury species of SHXW in rat tissues.

Release of Mercury from Intertidal Sediment to Atmosphere in Summer and Winter

The release of mercury from intertidal sediment to atmosphere was studied based on the simulated experiment. The experiment samples were collected from the Haibo Estuary (S1) and the Licun Estuary (S2) of the Jiaozhou Bay in China,which are seriously polluted with mercury. The results show that the mercury in sediment releases rapidly to atmosphere under solar radiation. After 8 hours of solar radiation,mercury concentrations decrease from 5.62 μg/g and 2.92 μg/g to 2.34 μg/g and 1.39 μg/g in S1 and S2 sediments respectively in summer,and decrease from 5.62 μg/g and 2.92 μg/g to 4.58 μg/g and 2.13 μg/g respectively in winter. The mercury species in the sediment change markedly under solar radiation. The concentrations of mercury bound to organic matter decrease significantly from 2.73 μg/g to 0.31 μg/g in S1 and from 2.07 μg/g to 0.31 μg/g in S2,and the released mercury mainly comes from mercury bound to organic matter. Mercury flux shows distinguishing characteristic of diurnal change,and it increases rapidly in the morning with the rising of solar radiation intensity,but decreases in the afternoon. The mercury flux increases with sediment temperature and solar radiation intensity. The rapid release of mercury in intertidal sediment plays an important role in the regional mercury cycle.

TOTAL AND METHYL MERCURY LEVELS IN HUMAN SCALP HAIRS

The contents of total and methyl mercury in scalp hair samples of 1179 fishermenliving at a typical Hg-polluted region in Northeast China and 27 lying-in womenand their new born babies in Beijing have been determined by illstrumental neutronactivation analysis, gas chromatography (electron coupling) and other techniqlles.Only 18 of all fishermen have the Hg contents above 5 ig/g, which indicates that theHg pollution there has been substantially alleviated. The longitudinal Hg patternsof the lying-in women show a gradually lowering tendency during pregnant period.Further, the Hg contents of the new-born babies are generally above or close to those oftheir mothers, confirming the mechanism that the methyl Hg, an organic species of Hgwith high toxicity, is readily able to penetrate the placental barrier and accumulatedin fetus. Thus, the mercury poison hajs occurred at the early stage of pregnancy.

Thermodynamic study on reaction path of Hg(Ⅱ) with S(Ⅱ) in solution

The mercury sulfidation experiments were conducted in the pH range from 1 to 13. The results show that Hg（II） reacted with equimolar S（ II ） has the lowest remained Hg（II ） concentration （9.7 μg/L） at pH 1.0 and the highest remained concentration （940.8μg/L） at pH 13.0. Meanwhile, the changes of pH values were monitored exactly, which reveal that solution pH values change when mixing the same pH value solutions of HgCI2 and Na2S. In order to explain the phenomena and determine the reaction paths of Hg（II） reacting with S（ II ） in the solution, the concerned thermodynamics was studied. Species of S（ II ）-H2O system and Hg（II）-H2O system at different pH values were calculated, and then the species distribution diagrams of S（II）-H2O system, Hg（ II ）-H2O system and Hg（ II ）-Cl-OH--H20 system were drawn. Combining the experimental data and thermodynamic calculation, the mechanism of Hg（II） reacting with S（II） was deduced. The results indicate that different species of S（ II ） and Hg（II） have the diverse reaction paths to form HgS precipitate at different pH values and the standard Gibbs free energies change （△tGm^⊙） of those equations are also calculated, which can provide a guidance for mercury-containing wastewater treatment with Na2S.