A DYNAMIC FLUX CHAMBER TO MEASURE MERCURY EMISSION FROM AQUATIC SYSTEMS

A floating flux chamber, built of Plexiglas, has been developed to mea sure vapour-phase mercury fluxes over aquatic systems. The chamber is connected via Teflon tubes to a semi-automatic sampling device and to a mercury analyzer (battery-powered) to perform the determination of m ercury emission in situ. Relatively low chamber blanks have been obser ved both in laboratory and in field conditions. The low detection limi t of the analyzer (0.5 pg of mercury) allows measurements of mercury c oncentration in a short period of time (10 min). In this way it is pos sible to follow the real-time temporal trend of mercury emission. Some data obtained with this flux chamber in selected areas of the Mediter ranean basin are reported. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.