The study of mercury bioavailability in sediments of petrochemical and Jafari, Bandar Imam Creeks

Background and Objective: Due to high mobility and toxicity of mercury in environment and also high accumulation of mercury in food chain, it is important to understand and predict human exposure and ecological risk assessment of mercury.  The purpose of this study was to investigate the total concentration of mercury and it's bioavailabilty in sediment of Petrochemical and Ja'fari creeks. Method: In the present study, 27 sediment samples were collected from the sampling sites. Digestion was employed in sample digestion followed by analysis using MOOPAM. samples were analyzed and determined for mercury concentrations by Mercury Analyzer model VM-3000 MERCURY VAPOR MONITOR. Sediments were further investigated for mercury fractions using a three step sequential extraction procedure of BCR. Findings: The concentrations of THg in sediment samples with a minimum of 2.19 and maximum of 45.71 and average of 23.9 milligram per liter show that area is contaminated with mercury according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration standard. Discussion and Conclusion: The sequential extraction procedure showed that most Hg in the sediments was largely bound un exchanable phases. Therefore it can not be exchanged between water and sediment under the physicochemical conditions with alkaline pH. The mercury which bound to exchanagble phase can easily desorb and adsorb by sediments. High content of mercury was in station close to chloralkaline factory and with distance, Hg concentration was decreased.