Using the mercury isotopic pattern as a kind of fingerprint holds promise as a tool to assist in the identification of local Hg deposition related to anthropogenic emissions.
Background:
Mercury ic called a global pollutant. Humans pump thousands of tons of vapor from the metallic element mercury into the atmosphere each year. According to EPA the largest manmade source of mercury emissions in the U.S. comes from coal-burning power plants. It is the chemical form of mercury released into the atmosphere that dictates whether it remains suspended for long periods and therefore can travel even across continents or gets removed from the atmosphere by precipitation. Therefore it is an ongoing discussion, about where that mercury goes when it’s released from a power plant smokestack.
The new study:Now a research group from the University of Michigan have started to crack the puzzle of how much is deposited nearby, close to the plant, and how much goes into what is called the global pool of mercury.
Joel Blum and his colleagues, using the isotopic pattern of mercury as a fingerprint were able to track mercury emissions from a power plant in Florida... and they found that a high proportion of the mercury ended up nearby.
The team took the fingerprint of mercury isotope ratios in coal from the regions in Kentucky and West Virginia that supply the Florida power plant. They further measured rainfall at sites near the plant and sites far away from the plant for a month. By comparing the fingerprints of mercury from the coal and the rainfall it turned out that the mercury fingerprint in those rainfall samples near the plant was very different from the mercury coming from other sources from across the Gulf of Mexico. In essence, the results basically indicated that a large portion of the mercury is being deposited locally from a particular power plant which strengthens the argument that mercury emissions from power plants in the United States should be regulated in order to reduce mercury pollution across the US.
A lot of questions remain to be solved to make this new technique an informative tool. Does the mercury fingerprint from coal show up unaltered in the stack gases? Can the fingerprints from other power plants really be distinguished ? Can the amount of mercury coming from a particular source be quantitatively estimated ? More work seems to be necessary in order to develop this new method.
Michael Sperling
The new study:
Laura S. Sherman, Joel D. Blum, Gerald J. Keeler, Jason D. Demers, J. Timothy Dvonch,
Investigation of Local Mercury Deposition from a Coal-Fired Power Plant Using Mercury Isotopes, Environ. Sci. Technol., Publication Date (Web): November 21, 2011.
DOI: 10.1021/es202793c Related studies (newest first): L. Lefticariu, J.D. Blum, J. D. Gleason,
Mercury isotopic evidence for multiple mercury sources in coal from the Illinois Basin, Environ. Sci. Technol., 45/4 (2011) 1724–1729.
doi: 10.1021/es102875n
N. Estrade, J. Carignan, O.F.X. Donard,
Isotope tracing of atmospheric mercury sources in an urban area of northeastern France, Environ. Sci. Technol., 44/16 (2010) 6062–6067.
DOI: 10.1021/es100674a W. Zheng, H. Hintelmann,
Isotope fractionation of mercury during its photochemical reduction by low-molecular-weight organic compounds, J. Phys. Chem. A, 114/12 (2010) 4246–4253.
doi: 10.1021/jp9111348 L.E. Gratz, G.J. Keeler, J.D. Blum, L.S. Sherman,
Isotopic composition and fractionation of mercury in Great Lakes precipitation and ambient air, Environ. Sci. Technol., 44 (2010) 7764–7770.
doi: 10.1021/es100383w T. Zambardi, J.E. Sonke, J.P. Toutain, F. Sortino, H. Shinohara,
Mercury emissions and stable isotopic compositions at Vulcano Island (Italy), Earth. Planet. Sci. Lett., 277 (2009) 236–243.
doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2008.10.023 N. Estrade, J. Carignan, J.E. Sonke, O.F.X. Donard,
Mercury isotope fractionation during liquid-vapor evaporation experiments, Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 73 (2009) 2693–2711.
doi: 10.1016/j.gca.2009.01.024 B.A. Bergquist, J.D. Blum,
The odds and evens of mercury isotopes: Applications of mass-dependent and mass-independent isotope fractionation, Elements, 5 (2009) 353–357.
doi: 10.2113/gselements.5.6.353 N. Zheng, H. Hintelmann,
Mercury isotope fractionation during photoreduction in natural water is controlled by its Hg/DOC ratio, Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 73 (2009) 6704–6715.
doi: 10.1016/j.gca.2009.08.016 D. Foucher, N. Ogrinc, H. Hintelmann,
Tracing mercury contamination from the Idrija mining region (Slovenia) to the Gulf of Trieste using Hg isotope ratio measurements, Environ. Sci. Technol., 43/1 (2009) 33–39.
doi: 10.1021/es801772b A. Biswas, J.D. Blum, B.A. Bergquist, G.J. Keeler, X. Zhouqing,
Natural mercury isotope variation in coal deposits and organic soils, Environ. Sci. Technol., 42/22 (2008) 8303–8309.
doi: 10.1021/es801444b B.A. Bergquist, J.D. Blum,
Mass-dependent and mass-independent fractionation of Hg isotopes by photo-reduction in aquatic systems, Science, 318/5849 (2007) 417–420.
doi: 10.1126/science.1148050
W. Zheng, D. Foucher, H. Hintelmann,
Mercury isotope fractionation during volatilization of Hg(0) from solution into the gas phase, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 22 (2007) 1097–1104.
doi: 10.1039/b705677j J.D. Blum, B.A. Bergquist,
Reporting the variations in the natural isotopic composition of mercury, Anal. Bioanal. Chem., 388/2 (2007) 353–359.
doi: 10.1007/s00216-007-1236-9 S. Lindberg, R. Bullock, R. Ebinghaus, D. Engstrom, X. Feng, W. Fitzgerald, N. Pirrone, E. Prestbo, C. Seigneur,
A synthesis of progress and uncertainties in attributing the sources of mercury in deposition, Ambio 36/1 (2007) 19–32.
doi: 10.1079/0044-7447(2007)36[19:ASOPAU]2.0.CO;2
K. Lohman, C. Seigneur, E. Edgerton, J. Jansen,
Modeling mercury in
power plant plumes, Environ. Sci. Technol., 40 (2006) 3848–3854.
doi:
10.1021/es051556v G.J. Keeler, M.S. Landis, G.A. Norris, E.M. Christianson, J.R. Dvonch,
Sources of mercury wet deposition in eastern Ohio, USA, Environ. Sci. Technol., 40 (2006) 5874–5881.
doi: 10.1021/es060377q A. Kolker, C.L. Senior, J.C. Quick,
Mercury in coal and the impact of coal quality on mercury emissions from combustion systems, Appl. Geochem., 21 (2006) 1821–1836.
doi: 10.1016/j.apgeochem.2006.08.001 J.T. Dvonch, Gerald J. Keeler, Frank J. Marsik,
The Influence of Meteorological Conditions on the Wet Deposition of Mercury in Southern Florida, J. Appl. Meteor., 44 (2005) 1421–1435.
doi: 10.1175/JAM2272.1 J.R. Graney, J.T. Dvonch, G.J. Keeler,
Use of multi-element tracers to source apportion mercury in south Florida aerosols, Atmos. Environ., 38/12 (2004) 1715– 1726.
doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2003.12.018 J.T. Dvonch, J.R. Graney, G.J. Keeler, R.K. Stevens,
Use of elemental tracers to source apportion mercury in south Florida precipitation, Environ. Sci. Technol., 33 (1999) 4522–4527.
doi: 10.1021/es9903678 B. Toole-O’Neil, S.J. Tewalt, R.B. Finkelman, D.J. Akers,
Mercury concentration in coal -- unraveling the puzzle, Fuel, 78 (1999) 47–54.
doi: 10.1016/S0016-2361(98)00112-4
Related information:
US EPA: Clean Air Interstate Rule US EPA: Regulatory Impact Analysis of the Final Clean Air Mercury Rule US EPA: Mercury Study Report to Congress - Vol. II - An Inventory of Anthropogenic Mercury Emissions in the United States US EPA: Mercury Study Report to Congress - Vol. III - Fate and Transport of Mercury in the Environment US EPA - Mercury Study Report to Congress - Vol. IV - An Assessment of Exposure to Mercury in the United States US EPA: Mercury Study Report to Congress - Vol. V - Health Effects of Mercury and Mercury Compounds US
EPA: Mercury Study Report to Congress - Vol. VI - An Ecological
Assessment for Anthropogenic Mercury Emissions in the United States US
EPA: Mercury Study Report to Congress . Vol. VII - Characterization of
Human Health and Wildlife Risks from Mercury Exposure in the United
States US EPA: Mercury Study Report to Congress - Vol. 8 - An Evaluation of Mercury Control Technology and Costs USGS: Fact Sheet: Glacial Ice Cores Reveal A Record of Natural and Anthropogenic Atmospheric Mercury Deposition for the Last 270 Years UNEP: Action on Heavy Metals Among Key Decisions at United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Council Meeting North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation: North American Power Plant Emissions American
Council on Science and Health, September 9, 2005: Regulating Mercury
Emissions from Power Plants: Will It Protect Our Health? EWG Report, November 1999: An Analysis of Mercury Pollution from Coal-Burning Power Plants National
Wildlife Foundation (NWF). September 1999. (Ann Arbor,MI:NWF): Clean
the Rain, Clean the Lakes: Mercury in Rain is Polluting the Great Lakes Edison Electric Institute (EEI): Mercury
Related EVISA Resources Link database: Environmental cycling of mercury Link database: Environmental mercury pollution
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