**4. Conclusions**

Artificial mercury speciation and quantification errors of organomercury compounds are caused by the artifact generation of organomercury compounds like Me-Hg and Et-Hg during the analytical methods. There were obvious artifact formation of methylmercury (Me-Hg) and ethylmercury (Et-Hg) compounds from a high level of inorganic mercury (more than 20 mg/kg) during NaBPr4 derivatization, and so this highly depends on the amount of inorganic mercury (Hg2+) present in the derivatization solution and the purity of sodium tetra (n-propyl) borate (NaBP). The high rate of artifact Et-Hg formation (0.76 to 0.81% of high-level Hg2+ present) seriously impairs Et-Hg analysis. This demonstrates that the sodium tetra (n-propyl) borate (NaBPr4) reagent is not suitable for the analysis of EtHg when inorganic mercury (In-Hg) concentrations in samples are higher than 20 mg/kg. The rate of methylmercury (MeHg) artifact creation is low and steady (0.012% of InHg present), and it has no impact on the analysis of methylmercury (MeHg) since the MeHg artifact ratio can be removed from the observed value of MeHg in the samples. However, the EtHg peak must be visible in the samples' chromatograms to do the mathematical correction for MeHg measurement. Additionally, the majority of the inorganic mercury (In-Hg) from the solid samples can be removed using acid leashing procedures before the derivatization step to prevent the formation of organomercury compounds (Me-Hg and Et-Hg) as an artifact during the derivatization process using NaBPr4 [29, 30].

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