Stability of Dimethyl Mercury in Seawater and Its Conversion to Monomethyl Mercury
Stability of Dimethyl Mercury in Seawater and Its Conversion to Monomethyl Mercury
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DOI：
10.1021/es9001218
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发表时间：
2009-06-01
影响因子：
11.4
通讯作者：
Flegal, A. Russell
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Black, Frank J.;Conaway, Christopher H.;Flegal, A. Russell
在世界海洋中经常检测到二甲基汞（DMHg），但对DMHg在自然沃茨中降解的机制或降解产物知之甚少。同样，在通常用于保存MMHg分析样品的酸性条件下，DMHg转化为MMHg的可能性也没有得到充分解决。我们提供的证据表明，天然海水中的DMHg不像以前认为的那样容易被太阳光降解。其他实验表明，海水中的DMHg在酸性条件下容易分解，在低pH下DMHg向MMHg的这种容易的转化都需要一种替代的保存方法，以在DMHg存在时分析样品的MMHg，在可能存在明显的二甲汞浓度的情况下，重新审查以前采用样品酸化法对海水中的MMHg进行研究的数据。
Dimethyl mercury (DMHg) is commonly detected in the world's oceans, but little is known about the mechanisms responsible for DMHg degradation in natural waters or the products of this degradation. Similarly, the potential for the conversion of DMHg to monomethyl mercury (MMHg) under the acidic conditions commonly used to preserve samples for MMHg analysis has not been fully addressed. We provide evidence suggesting that DMHg in natural seawater is not readily photodegraded by sunlight as previously thought Other experiments demonstrated that DMHg in seawater is, however, readily decomposed under acidic conditions, with MMHg as the predominant product This facile conversion of DMHg to MMHg at low pH both necessitates an alternative preservation method to acidification for samples to be analyzed for MMHg when DMHg is present and requires that data from previous studies of MMHg in seawater employing sample acidification be revisited in instances where appreciable DMHg concentrations were possible.