Mercury vegetation

Air pollutants that present a hazard to livestock, therefore, are those that are taken up by vegetation or deposited on the plants. Only a few pollutants have been observed to cause harm to animals. These include arsenic, fluorides, lead, mercury, and molybdenum. 

Heavy metals on or in vegetation and water have been and continue to be toxic to animals and fish. Arsenic and lead from smelters, molybdenum from steel plants, and mercury from chlorine-caustic plants are major offenders. Poisoning of aquatic life by mercury is relatively new, whereas the toxic effects of the other metals have been largely eliminated by proper control of industrial emissions. Gaseous (and particulate) fluorides have caused injury and damage to a wide variety of animals—domestic and wild—as well as to fish. Accidental effects resulting from insecticides and nerve gas have been reported. 

Mercury in fish has been found in waters in the United States and Canada. Mercury in the waters is converted into methyl mercury by aquatic vegetation. Small fish consume such vegetation and in turn are eaten by larger fish and eventually by humans food with more than 0.5 ppm of mercury (0.5 mg/kg) cannot be sold in the United States for human consumption. 

This procedure has been utihzed to determine metal cations and anions in water sample [48,50,51], titanium in high-speed steel at a concentration level of 25 3 mg/g [22], heavy metals (20 to 400 mg/1) in electroplating waste waters [25], copper and nickel (5 mg/1) in metal electroplating baths on wedge-shaped plates [44], copper, lead, cadmium, or mercury in vegetable juices [29], and nickel (1 to 3.8 mg/1) in electroplating waste water of lock industries [42,47]. 

The zone elution method has been used for quantitative estimation or recovery of heavy metals in plants and vegetable juices [29], mercury (11) in river and waste waters [52], zinc in different environmental samples [46], nickel and copper in alloys [53], zirconium in Mg-Al alloys [22], cobalt, zinc, nickel, and copper in natural water and alloy samples [54], thiocyanate in spiked photogenic waste water [55], and aluminum in bauxite ores [42],... 

Uses Determining refractive index of minerals paint diluent dyed hexane is used in thermometers instead of mercury polymerization reaction medium calibrations solvent for vegetable oils alcohol denaturant chief constituent of petroleum ether, rubber solvent, and gasoline in organic synthesis. 

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