**3.2 Methyl (MeHg) and Ethylmercury (EtHg) percentage (%) artifact formation in the blank (TMAH) and the hair samples during derivatization by NaBPr4**

To calculate the percentage amounts of artifact**s** formation of methyl and ethylmercury in spiked blank and hair samples, the normal abundance inorganic mercury standard solution, and enriched inorganic mercury (199In-Hg) during derivatization by NaBPr4, the artifact percentage (%) calculation was done as follows:

*A Study on the Methyl and Ethylmercury Artifacts in Biological Samples Using Sodium… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110050*

### *3.2.1 Comparison of MeHg and EtHg % artifact formation in un-spiked blank (TMAH) with spiked blank and enriched abundance 199InHg*

It can be observed from **Table 3** and **Figure 10** that the average artifact formation of MeHg was 0.012% for both spiked blank (TMAH) with the low amount of enriched 199InHg (70 ul of 1 mg/kg of standard) and high amount of 199InHg standard solution (20 mg/kg), while there is no artifact present in un-spiked blank (TMAH). Also, the average artifact formation of EtHg (0.82%) was higher about 68 times than the average artifact formation of MeHg in both spiked blank and enriched InHg standard solution.

*3.2.2 Comparison of MeHg and EtHg % artifact formation in un-spiked chlor alkali hair sample with spiked CA hair and normal abundance InHg standard solution*

To compare the rate of MeHg and EtHg percentage (%) artifact formation in chlor alkali hair sample (un-spiked and spiked CA hair sample) and normal


### **Table 3.**

*Comparison of MeHg and EtHg % artifact formation in the un-spiked blank (TMAH) with spiked blank and enriched abundance InHg standard during derivatization using NaBPr4.*

### **Figure 10.**

*Compression of calculated mercury isotope ratios (Hg-IR) in spiked blank with enriched 199InHg the spiked blank versus enriched 199In-Hg standard solution during derivatization using NaBPr4.*


### **Table 4.**

*Comparison of MeHg and EtHg % artifact formation in un-spiked CA hair with spiked CA hair and normal abundance InHg during derivatization using NaBPr4.*

### **Figure 11.**

*Comparison of MeHg and EtHg % artifact formation in un-spiked CA hair versus spiked CA hair with mixed enriched 201MeHg & <sup>199</sup> InHg standards and the same amount of normal abundance InHg during derivatization using NaBPr4.*

abundance In-Hg standard solution, further calculations were done as shown in **Table 4** and **Figure 11**, and the percentage results were similar to those found in spiked and spiked blank. However, it can be observed that the rate of MeHg % artifact formation is increased by the factor of 0.012% (from 0.220% in un-spiked CA hair to 0.232% in spiked CA hair sample with mixed enriched 201MeHg and 199InHg), while the percentage artifact formation rates of EtHg were constant (0.76% for both of each). In addition, for normal abundance standard solution, the percentage (%) artifact formation of MeHg and EtHg was recorded similar to those found in spiked chlor alkali hair sample (CA hair). Moreover, the % arifact formation rate of MeEtHg (0.24%) was recored only in spiked CA hair sample with mixed enriched 201MeHg and *A Study on the Methyl and Ethylmercury Artifacts in Biological Samples Using Sodium… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110050*

199InHg standard solutions (70 ul of 1.0 ppm from each standard). This is meaning that the artifact formation of MeEtHg comes from enriched 201MeHg in comparison with un-spiked CA hair and normal abundance In-Hg standard solution.
