Mercury speciation in sediments of a tropicalcoastal environment

摘要

The speciation of mercury in tropical coastal areas, although scarcely studied, has presented an odd behaviour when compared with the results obtained in temperate environments. In this work, we measured the concentrations of mercury species(mercuric mercury, methyl-mercury and dimethyl-mercury) in the sediments of Sepetiba Bay(Brazi) and compared these with geochemical parameters. Twenty-eight sediment samples were extracted in an open microwave system and mercury speciation was carried out by ethylation, cryogenic focusing, gas chromatography and quartz furnace atomic absorption spectrometry.