In situ experiments for element species-specific environmental reactivity of tin and mercury compounds using isotopic tracers and multiple linear regression

The fate of mercury (Hg) and tin (Sn) compounds in ecosystems is strongly determined by their alkylation/dealkylation pathways. However, the experimental determination of those transformations is still not straightforward and methodologies need to be refined. The purpose of this work is the development of a comprehensive and adaptable tool for an accurate experimental assessment of specific formation/degradation yields and half-lives of elemental species in different aquatic environments. The methodology combines field incubations of coastal waters and surface sediments with the addition of species-specific isotopically enriched tracers and a mathematical approach based on the deconvolution of isotopic patterns. The method has been applied to the study of the environmental reactivity of Hg and Sn compounds in coastal water and surface sediment samples collected in two different coastal ecosystems of the South French Atlantic Coast (Arcachon Bay and Adour Estuary). Both the level of isotopically enriched species and the spiking solution composition were found to alter dibutyltin and monomethylmercury degradation yields, while no significant changes were measurable for tributyltin and Hg(II). For butyltin species, the presence of light was found to be the main source of degradation and removal of these contaminants from surface coastal environments. In contrast, photomediated processes do not significantly influence either the methylation of mercury or the demethylation of methylmercury. The proposed method constitutes an advancement from the previous element-specific isotopic tracers’ approaches, which allows for instance to discriminate the extent of net and oxidative Hg demethylation and to identify which debutylation step is controlling the environmental persistence of butyltin compounds.