Translocation of inorganic/organic mercury in a model aquatic system

The volatile organic mercury at subnanogram level was determined by steam distillation-Magos treatment and flameless atomic absorption spectrophotometry after preconcentration with silvered sand. By this technique, down to 0.1 ng of methyl mercury can be determined with good precision (±5%). Application of the technique to our aquatic model system made clear that much higher ratio of organic mercury (nearly 8%) to the total one was in water overlying organic sediment than the water sample overlying sandy sediment (approx. 3.5%). In natural water, therefore, it would seem that the content of organomercurials are less than 10% to that of total mercury.