Dimethyl mercury , pollution

Mercury as an environmental pollutant is sometimes found as dimethyl mercury. Look up the natural abundance of the mercury isotopes and calculate the pattern to be expected in the molecular-ion region. The methyl group in acetophenone can be deuterated by refluxing a mixture of acetophenone and D2O with a little base catalyst. 

The tendency of a pollutant to undergo a chemical reaction in the environment (characteristic /, p. 310) may be quite important. The relatively harmless nitrous oxide is convert in the atmosfere into nitric acid, which is more hazardous. Much more dramatic is the conversion of already toxic mercury salts into the much more poisonous compound dimethyl mercury, that takes place under non-aerobic conditions in muds, etc.. The discovery of this fact has resulted in much stricter relations regarding mercury emissions. 

Mercury dimethyl is a toxic environmental pollutant. It is found in polluted bottom sediments and in the bodies of fishes and birds. In the bodies of fishes and birds it occurs along with monomethyl mercury. The latter, as CH3Hg+ ion, is formed by microorganism-induced biological methylation of elemental mercury or agricultural fungicide mercury compounds that are discharged into the environment. 

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