Gas-chromatographic speciation of methylstannanes in the Chesapeake Bay using purge and trap sampling with a tin-selective detector

Abstract

Recent attention has focused, for example, on reports of biological (3,4) and abiotic (5) formation of volatile tetramethyllead in aquatic media with its apparent large-scale transport into the atmosphere (6). Tin's chemical similarities to lead also imply its widespread environmental formation and gaseous transport as hydrophobic tetramethyltin (Me4Sn). Biogenesis of this molecule, though not heretofore detected in the aquatic environment, seems reasonable on the basis of recent evidence for in vitro methylation of various inorganic tin and organotin compounds by microbes isolated from the Chesapeake Bay (7-9) and by viable sediments from San Francisco Bay (10) or Canadian freshwater lakes (11).fThis work was presented in part at the 15th Middle Atlantic

Assessing Potential Impacts of Stannous Chloride Based Mercury Treatment on a Receiving Stream Using Real-World Data From Tims Branch, Savannah River Site

“…Issue 1: Tin is subject to microbial methylation in both aerobic and anaerobic sediments and methyltin compounds have been detected in both fresh and salt water (Ridley et al 1977, Braman and Tompkins 1979, Gilmour et al 1985, Chen et al 2007, Jackson et al 1982, Craig and Rapsomanikis 1985, Amouroux et al 2000, Rapsomanikis and Weber 1985. While the fraction of tin that was observed to be methylated by natural processes in many environments was relatively low and the conditions that maximize methylation (e.g., high salinity) are not present in typical freshwater streams, the potential exists for tin methylation in freshwater stream and riparian systems receiving long term discharges from outfalls being treated using stannous chloride and air stripping.…”

Inorganic Materials Biotechnology: A New Industrial Measurement Challenge

“…Our laboratory· has developed chromatographic systems (HPLC, GC) coupled with element-selective detectors for speciation of metal-containing biogenic molecules in gas or liquid phases at ultratrace (pg-ng) levels. Volatile forms of metals have been speciated by GC-AA [45,46], or by GC with a flame photometric detector made selective for the element of interest by different flame gas flows and optical interference filters [47]. Solvated forms of metals can be speciated using liquid chromatography coupled with atomic absorption [48] or epifluorescence microscope (using fluorescent ligands) [49,50] detectors.…”

Organotin pollution in Malta coastal zone

“…These organotins are believed to originate mainly by biotic [7][8][9] or abiotic [10,11] methylation of inorganic tin, Sn 4+ . Biotic transformation of tin can also conduce to the formation of stannane, SnH4, and methylstannanes, Me n SnH( 4 _ n ), depending on conditions [12]; methylstannanes with n = 2,3 and also BuSnH 3 have been detected in seawater [13]. Additional geochemical pathways must be available in order to account for the presence of methylbutyltins Bu3MeSn and Bu2Me2Sn which were first reported by Maguire [14].…”