Concentrations of a water soluble, gas-phase mercury species in ambient air: Results from measurements and modeling

There are few reliable data on the speciation of Hg in ambient air, although this information is critical to understanding the fate of Hg once released from point sources. The water soluble species of Hg that are thought to exist in flue gases would be subject to far greater local removal rates than is elemental Hg vapor, but methods are lacing to quantify this species. The authors developed a method using refluxing mist chambers to measure the airborne concentrations of reactive gaseous mercury (RGM) in short-term samples under ambient conditions. The method exhibits an effective detection limit of 0.02 ng/m{sup 3} and a precision for ambient concentration levels of {+-}20--30%. Using a model that simulates atmospheric transport and fate of anthropogenic mercury emissions over the contiguous United States, the authors generated 24-hr RGM concentrations to compare to the measurement data. The average RGM concentrations measured with their mist chambers at sites in Tennessee (TN) and Indiana (IN) were 0.065 ng/m{sup 3} and 0.100 ng/m{sup 3}, respectively. These averages represent about 3% of total gaseous mercury (TGM), and RGM generally exceeds regional particulate Hg. The 24-hr model-simulated RGM concentration averages in the modeling grid cells representing TN and IN are 0.051 ng/m{sup 3} and 0.098 ng/m{sup 3} respectively, in good agreement with the data. The measured concentrations at the two sites exhibit weak positive correlations with temperature, solar radiation, O{sub 3}, SO{sub 2}, and TGM. These concentrations are high enough to suggest that RGM can play an important role in both wet and dry deposition on a regional scale