Use of l-cysteine for minimization of inorganic Hg loss during thermal neutron irradiation

One-Pot Synthesis of Liquid Hg/Solid β-HgS Metal−Semiconductor Heterostructures with Unique Electrical Properties

“…A plausible explanation is that the thiol groups of cysteine solution bind with Hg and β-HgS to form Hg-S-C coordination bonds owing to their high affinity for metal Hg and Hg 2þ , 39 which prevents not only the merging of Hg heads but also the volatilization of Hg. 35 Compared with these two spectra, it is obvious that both spectra exhibit the characteristic bands at 1063 cm -1 attributed to the -NH 3 rocking mode, 1603 cm -1 assigned to the -NH 3 asymmetric bending mode, and 1380 cm -1 assigned to the symmetric www.acsnano.org stretching of -COO -. However, the peaks at 939 and 2540 cm -1 , respectively, attributed to -SH bending and stretching mode totally vanish in the spectra of heterostructures, 40,41 indicating formation of strong Hg-S-C coordination bonds between cysteine and the heterostructures, namely, on the surface of the heterostructures.…”

“…30 For instance, reactions between Hg 2þ and cysteine possibly give rise to products of either elementary Hg or binary HgS by altering the experimental conditions. [31][32][33][34][35] Followed by the above bioprocess, it is very interesting to construct Hg/HgS heterostructures through one step by directly mixing Hg 2þ and cysteine in alkaline aqueous solution, if the synthesis conditions are carefully controlled. Using this method, we successfully prepare 1D Hg/β-HgS metal-semiconductor heterostructures for the first time via one-pot synthesis.…”

“…Cysteine (H 2 SR, R = −CH 2 CH(NH 2 )COO − ) is one of the typical amino acids with three functional groups (−SH, −COOH, and −NH 2 ) and exists widely in organisms, and it has been explored as one of the key factors to cause biotoxic effects because of the strong affinity of thiol groups of cysteine to heavy metal ions such as Hg 2+ . − Furthermore, cysteine is an unstable compound and is easily oxidized or decomposed by metal ions especially in alkaline solution . For instance, reactions between Hg 2+ and cysteine possibly give rise to products of either elementary Hg or binary HgS by altering the experimental conditions. − Followed by the above bioprocess, it is very interesting to construct Hg/HgS heterostructures through one step by directly mixing Hg 2+ and cysteine in alkaline aqueous solution, if the synthesis conditions are carefully controlled. Using this method, we successfully prepare 1D Hg/β-HgS metal−semiconductor heterostructures for the first time via one-pot synthesis.…”

Establishing adequate conditions for mercury determination in environmental samples by INAA

“…In the analysis of Hg by INAA, two radioisotopes that can be measured for its quantification are formed: 197 Hg (77.34 keV with half-life of 64.16 h) and 203 Hg (279.20 keV with half-life of 46.61 d) [6]. However, the main difficulty in the determination of Hg by INAA is the loss of this element during irradiation due to a combination of electrolytic action creating elemental Hg, recoil due to the (n,γ) reaction, and thermal heating [7]. The use of quartz ampoules as irradiation container would avoid the Hg loss [8], but it is not adequate due to the difficulty in transferring the irradiated sample from the ampoule to a counting container.…”

Effect of l-cysteine on drying and neutron irradiation loss of Hg, Se, As, and Br from fish tissue

“…INAA has advantages over such techniques in that digestions (which could result in contamination by reagents or lead to losses via volatilization or container wall adsorption) are not needed prior to analysis. Standard INAA procedures have been optimized by use of Compton suppression (otherwise known as anti-Compton) signal processing techniques (Landsberger et al, 2005;Anderson and Cunningham, 2008;Anderson, 2009b) to significantly lower limits of detection (LODs, Currie, 1968) for over 30 elements, including the nutritional or potentially toxic elements As, Cd, Co, Fe, Hg, I, K, Sb, Se, and Zn.…”