Issue 11, 2004

Total mercury determination in sand boxes from Montreal

Abstract

Direct mercury analysis was successfully applied to determine trace levels of total mercury in samples from sand boxes in Montréal (Québec, Canada). Twenty sand boxes were sampled from across the city and divided into two size fractions, a fine fraction (<100 μm) and a whole fraction. The concentrations of mercury ranged from 1.6 to 35 μg Hg kg−1 dry soil for the fine fraction and from 0.7 to 6 μg Hg kg−1 dry soil for the whole fraction. The mercury concentrations correlated with the soil organic carbon content (R2 = 0.67) in the sand. The ratio of the concentration of mercury in the fine over the whole fraction varied from 2.2 to 18. Using published soil ingestion rates for children, the calculated daily intake values varied from 0 to 0.5 ng Hg kg−1 bw d−1 with an estimated oral ingestion of 200 mg of sand and from 0.2 to 4.7 ng Hg kg−1 bw d−1 with an ingestion of 1750 mg of sand. None of the sand boxes contain sufficient amounts of mercury so as to exceed the currently accepted daily intake threshold of 0.105 μg Hg kg−1 bw d−1 established by Health Canada.

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
01 Jun 2004
Accepted
11 Aug 2004
First published
26 Oct 2004

J. Environ. Monit., 2004,6, 903-906

Total mercury determination in sand boxes from Montreal

P. B. Fayad, M. Amyot and S. Sauvé, J. Environ. Monit., 2004, 6, 903 DOI: 10.1039/B408170F

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Spotlight

Advertisements