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methyl mercury gc ms
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 1:20 am
by mauricio
Hello
I need to determine methyl mercury in tissues.
It is possible using gc ms ?
It is necessary derivatized ?
Thanks
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 2:43 am
by Don_Hilton
A quick google search will turn up links like:
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=17404801 methyl mercury by isotope dilution GC/MS from fish or
http://www.gnest.org/Journal/Vol8_No1/p ... OG_397.pdf for several mercury species in sewage by GC/MS or
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17242887 for methyl mercury in fish by two techniques - one of which is GC/MS
and there are many more. I entered "Methyl Mercury GC/MS" for the search string.
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:33 pm
by jerole
I have been analysing Methylmercury in fish samples by GC/MS. If you give me your email or write me at jerole(at)gmail.com I can send you some information.
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:16 pm
by AICMM
mauricio,
Very interested to hear how this turns out. Please keep us posted.
Best regards.
Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:52 am
by jerole
Concerning the derivatization, you can use tetraethyl- or tetrapropylborate. I usually use tetraethylborate, it's less expensive and much more stable than the tetrapropylborate.
There are a few papers that mention that you can have transmethylation processes during the derivatization with tetraethylborate in presence of halides. Though I wonder why this would happen with tetraethylborate, but not with tetraproylborate. I have been working with both and I never noticed any different behaviour.
More important might be the extraction process. If the conditions are too harsh you may decompose the Methylmercury to Inorganic Mercury.