Tin and Methyltin Species in Seawater: Concentrations and Fluxes

Abstract

The concentrations of tin and methyltin species in rivers, an estuary, and the surface and deep ocean generally are less than 50 picomoles of tin per liter. Estuarine profiles and river concentrations suggest that the dissolved riverine input of tin is only a minor source of this element to the oceans. Oceanic concentrations of inorganic tin decrease both with distance from land and with increasing depth from the surface, an indication of atmospheric transport to the surface ocean. Most of the contemporaneous eolian influx of tin to the oceans is anthropogenic. The vertical structure oftin concentrations in the northwestern Atlantic can be explained in terms of a model based on eolian input, advective processes, and removal of tin by particulate scavenging.

Determination of Zr, Nb, Mo, Sn, Hf, Ta, and W in seawater by N-benzoyl-N-phenylhydroxylamine extraction chromatographic resin and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry

“…Zr, Hf, Nb, and Ta are classified as refractory metals and are dominated by the hydroxide species, Zr(OH) 5 − , Hf(OH) 5 − , Nb(OH) 6 …”

Methylation mechanism of tin(II) by methylcobalamin in aquatic systems

“…To date, methyltin compounds have been globally found in various environmental matrices such as sea water (Braman and Tompkins, 1979), estuarine water (Donard et al, 1986), fresh water (Byrd and Andreae, 1982), lake water (Maguire et al, 1982), waste water (Donard et al, 1993), sediments (Tugrul et al, 1983;Maguire et al, 1986;Schebek et al, 1991), as well as various biological samples such as fish, oyster, mussels, domestic chicken egg shell and macroalgae (Seidel et al, 1980;Han and Weber, 1988;Quevauviller et al, 1989). A number of reports have testified that environmental methylation of inorganic tin might be an important source of methyltin compounds.…”

Determination of total tin in National Research Council of Canada marine reference materials

“…refs. [4][5][6][7] have been obtained only recently, however, due to the attention devoted to control of sample contamination.…”

“…Although the average crustal abundance of tin is only 3 pg/g (I), it is one of the most highly enriched metals in atmospheric particulate matter (7,8). Additionally, tin is a ubiquitous contaminant in laboratory sampling vessels (including quartz and many plastics) and stringent control of airborne and reagent contamination as well as vessel surface cleanliness is imperative if accurate analyses are to be achieved.…”