Mercury in environment

Bishop, J.N., Taylor, L.A. and Neary, B.P. (1973) in The Determination of Mercury in Environment Samples, Ministry of the Environment, Ontario, Canada. 

Mercury may be present in air in different chemical states such as the elemental form (as a vapour or adsorbed on particular matter) or in the form of volatile mercury compounds (mercury chloride, methyl-mercuric chloride, and dimethyl mercury). Although elemental mercury is only one of the mercury forms which is not as toxic as its organic or ionic forms, analytical determination of elemental mercury is of special importance. Such analysis is used not only for determination of elemental mercury in environment, but also as a method for determination of other forms of mercury after reductive treatment. 

P.A. Ariya, K. Peterson, in N. Pirrone (Ed.), Atmospheric Chemical Transformation of Elemental Mercury, Mercury in Environment, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2005. 

Table 1 Standards for the permissible amount of mercury in environment...

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