Mercury-containing organic species

The catastrophy of Minamata in Japan (1953-1960), with 55 people killed and more than 1200 poisoned, for the first time focused attention on the environmental consequences of water-soluble organometal species. In this particular case, it was mercury-containing waste water that had access to marine organisms [3 a, 20]. Fish, particularly, accumulates mercury, up to 250 ppb. In another case (Iraq, 1970-1971), the seed disinfectant ethylmercury p-toluenesulfonic anilide (4) had been applied to wheat and caused severe poisoning of consumers. 

This review considers the literature of the past years (up to 1979) that treats the preconcentration of the priority pollution metals antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenium, silver, thallium, and zinc. In some cases, a brief outline is given or some discussion of the method, but in most instances, the number of methods available precludes more than a mention of their specific application or special feature. For some elements such as mercury many methods of preconcentration are available, for others such as beryllium and thallium only a few are reported. Relatively few procedures actually detail the analysis of a sample containing several species both organic and inorganic, although this area is of major concern, because of large differences in the relative toxicity of the various species. 

Several instances of apparently stable solvated metal perchlorates being converted by partial desolvation into explosively unstable materials indicate that this may be a more common potential hazard than has been realised [1]. Neodymium perchlorate tetra-solvated with acetonitrile (obtained by vacuum evaporation of the solution at ambient temperature) had not been found to be thermally- or shock-sensitive, but when vacuum dried at 80°C to the di-solvate, it exploded violently on contact [2]. Erbium perchlorate tetrasolvated with acetonitrile had likewise appeared stable, but when vacuum dried at 150°C to a glassy solid which still contained some solvent, it too exploded when scraped with a spatula [3]. Mercury(II) perchlorate hexa-solvated with DMSO appears stable [4], but when dried to the tetrasolvate, it is impact- and friction-sensitive [5], The fact that the solvating species may also be water suggests that this is not a direct effect of a perchlorate oxidising an organic solvent. Thus,... 

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