Photochemistry articles within Nature Geoscience

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• Letter | 27 June 2010

  Photolytic degradation of methylmercury enhanced by binding to natural organic ligands

  Methylmercury is a neurotoxin that accumulates in food webs and poses a significant risk to human health. Laboratory experiments suggest that complexation of methylmercury with sulphur-containing ligands can stimulate its degradation.

  • Tong Zhang
  •  & Heileen Hsu-Kim

• Letter | 07 February 2010

  Mass-independent fractionation of mercury isotopes in Arctic snow driven by sunlight

  In the Arctic spring, sunlight-induced reactions convert gaseous elemental mercury into compounds that are rapidly deposited on the snowpack. Analysis of the isotopic composition of mercury in snow samples collected during an atmospheric mercury depletion event suggests that sunlight triggers the re-emission of mercury from the snowpack.

  • Laura S. Sherman
  • , Joel D. Blum
  •  & Thomas A. Douglas