Abstract
Bees and their products are useful bioindicators of anthropogenic activities and could overcome the deficiencies of air quality networks. Among the environmental contaminants, mercury (Hg) is a toxic metal that can accumulate in living organisms. The first aim of this study was to develop a simple analytical method to determine Hg in small mass samples of bees and beehive products by cold vapor atomic fluorescence spectrometry. The proposed method was optimized for about 0.02 g bee, pollen, propolis, and royal jelly, 0.05 g beeswax and honey, or 0.1 g honeydew with 0.5 mL HCl, 0.2 mL HNO3, and 0.1 mL H2O2 in a water bath (95 °C, 30 min); samples were made up to a final volume of 5 mL deionized water. The method limits sample manipulation and the reagent mixture volume used. Detection limits were lower than 3 µg kg−1 for a sample mass of 0.02 g, and recoveries and precision were within 20% of the expected value and less than 10%, respectively, for many matrices. The second aim of the present study was to evaluate the proposed method’s performances on real samples collected in six areas of the Lazio region in Italy.
Highlights
IntroductionMercury (Hg) is an ubiquitous and toxic metal that continues to be a public health concern [1,2,3]
Hg is associated with several adverse human health effects [7], it is still widely used in the chloralkali industry, for gold mining, and the production of dental amalgam, batteries, pesticides, fungicides, disinfectants, and antiseptics [8]
The use of smaller volumes of reagents allows for a lower final dilution factor (5×), and lower method detection limit (DL) and decreases the consumable and chemical waste generated, meeting the ever-increasing demand to comply with green chemistry requirements
Summary
Mercury (Hg) is an ubiquitous and toxic metal that continues to be a public health concern [1,2,3]. It is released into the environment from both natural and anthropogenic sources [4]. Because of the mentioned toxic properties, Hg monitoring in food and environmental samples is essential in order to perform reliable risk assessments and take appropriate actions to protect human health and the environment [9]. Mercury in the atmosphere is mainly assessed by making punctual measurements with manual or automated air quality monitoring stations [14]
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