Mercury concentration in fish from Piracicaba River (Minas Gerais, Brazil)

Abstract

Mercury emissions from some upstream gold mining areas and recent findings of high natural Hg levels in sediments motivated studies on the Hg cycle in the Minas Gerais state. The study presents the total mercury amount found in Geophagus brasiliensis' muscular tissue (wet weight) and sediments from Piracicaba River. Mercury was analyzed using acid digestion followed by determination of total mercury by cold vapour atomic absorption spectrophotometry. This study was also complemented with the analysis of the limnological parameters (water temperature, conductivity, total dissolved solids, suspended particles, pH, dissolved oxygen, maximum depth, photic index and total carbon). The mercury concentration in sediments samples was higher than the mercury concentration in muscular tissue of fish. The lowest Hg level measured in fish was 0.0147 microg g( - 1), while the highest was 0.101 microg g( - 1). In the sediment samples, the lowest and highest levels were 0.02 microg g( - 1) and 0.16 microg g( - 1), respectively. The Hg concentrations in fish and sediment were both under the maximum limit permitted by the World Health Organization.

Development of a carbon nanotubes paste electrode modified with crosslinked chitosan for cadmium(II) and mercury(II) determination

“…Several analytical methods have been applied for the determination of mercury in biological and environmental samples, such as spectrophotometry [13,14], atomic absorption spectrometry [15,16], stripping voltammetry [17][18][19][20] using a different electrodes as gold, glassy carbon, nanoparticles, and carbon paste electrodes.…”

Benthic fish blood as a biomarker for recent exposure to mercury

“…In order to meet safety standards for human consumption and water use, water and fish muscle samples are the matrices of choice for metals assessment (Ferreira et al, 2006;Arantes et al, 2009). More recently, biomarkers have been applied to determine the levels of contamination of environments and make risk assessments.…”