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Investigation of Hg Content by a Rapid Analytical Technique in Mediterranean Pelagic Fishes
Version 1
: Received: 25 July 2018 / Approved: 27 July 2018 / Online: 27 July 2018 (17:23:58 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Di Bella, G.; Tardugno, R.; Cicero, N. Investigation of Hg Content by a Rapid Analytical Technique in Mediterranean Pelagic Fishes. Separations 2018, 5, 51. Di Bella, G.; Tardugno, R.; Cicero, N. Investigation of Hg Content by a Rapid Analytical Technique in Mediterranean Pelagic Fishes. Separations 2018, 5, 51.
Abstract
Mercury (Hg) fish and seafood contamination is a global concern and needs worldwide sea investigations in order to protect consumers. The aim of this study was to investigate the Hg concentration by means of a rapid and simple analytical technique with direct Mercury Analyzer (DMA-80) in pelagic fish species, Tetrapturus belone (spearfish), Thunnus thynnus (tuna) and Xiphias gladius (swordfish) caught in the Mediterranean Sea. Hg contents were evaluated also in Salmo salar (salmon) as pelagic fish not belonging to the Mediterranean area. The results obtained were variable ranging between 0,015-2,562 mg kg-1 for T. thynnus specie, 0,477-3,182 mg kg-1 for X. gladius, 0,434-1,730 mg kg-1 for T. belone and 0,004-0,019 mg kg-1 for S. salar, respectively. The total Hg tolerable weekly intake (TWI) and % tolerable weekly intake (TWI%) values according to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) were calculated. The results highlighted that the pelagic species caught in the Mediterranean Sea should be constantly monitored due to their high Hg contents as well as their TWI and TWI% with respect to S. salar samples.
Keywords
Mercury, Pelagic Fish, Direct Mercury Analyzer, Mediterranean Sea, Tolerable Weekly Intake
Subject
Chemistry and Materials Science, Food Chemistry
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Speciation of mercury in environmental and biological samples has been shown to depend on the form of mercury being determined. The authors may want to state the exact mercury form they used as a standard (e.g. chloride, sulfide, sulfate, etc.).
The authors included the results for the linearity, detection limit and quantitation limit. They may want to include the recovery.