Spectrophotometric Determination of Hg (II) in Cosmetics

Abstract

Natural sources of mercury come from volcanoes, forest fires and the weathering of mercury-bearing rocks. However, this is small compared to the vast amount of mercury which is generated from anthropogenic sources (human activities), such as fossil fuel combustion, solid waste incineration, mining and smelting, manufacture of cement and the use of mercury cells in the commercial production of chlorine.[24] Of all the anthropogenic activities, by far the largest polluters are coal-fired power plants, which release approximately 50 tons of elemental mercury into the atmosphere each year via the effluent generated by the combustion process[5]. Once released, the mercury particulates fall back down to the ground and get absorbed by soils, where they eventually get into commercial farming crops and vegetables. Mercury also enters surface waters, such as lakes, rivers, wetlands, estuaries and the open ocean, where it is converted to organic mercury (mainly methyl mercury – CH3Hg+) by the action of anaerobic organisms. The methyl mercury biomagnifies up the aquatic food chain as it is passed from a lower food chain to a subsequently higher food chain level through feeding and eventually finds its way into the fish we eat.