Volatile mercury species in environmental gases and biological samples

Mercury is emitted into the atmosphere from a number of natural as well as anthropogenic sources. Anthropogenic emissions of mercury are thought to be of the same order of magnitude as those from natural sources (Ebinghaus et al. 1998). In addition to elementary mercury in the atmosphere, dimethyl and diethylmercury, as well as particle-bound mercury have been detected in the very low pg/l concentration range (Kaiser and Tolg 1980).