Читать книгу Groundwater Geochemistry - Группа авторов - Страница 110

Mercury (Hg) has received more attention in groundwater owing to their carcinogenic nature. The different path of mercury contributes to groundwater pollution. For instance, coal‐fired plants, smelting, alkali processing, and other industrial actions cause mercury pollution in groundwater. Natural activities are another cause of mercury contamination in groundwater. Apart from this, over the last decades, metallic mercury has been utilized in various fields like medical fields (thermometers, barometers, and other instruments for measuring blood pressure), which are causes of mercury pollution in groundwater, including the consumption of calomel and mercury amalgam to healing teeth (feeling and diuretics) in the field of dentistry contributing to Hg groundwater pollution (Barringer et al. 2013). The utilization of Hg as voltametric sensor to detect the trace metals in water is other reason for the contribution of Hg to water contamination. The inorganic Hg is less toxic than organic mercury. However, inorganic Hg is easily transformed into methyl mercury as organic compound, which is more stable and exposed to fish. Humans consume the organic Hg through the food chain like fish consumption and dental amalgam (Järup 2003; Hashim et al. 2011).