Mercury and its compounds are chemicals which are great bio accumulative potential causing serious
effects on human health and the environment. Mercury is used in many industries such as chemicals, fertilizers,
plastics, electrical engineering, electronics, cement, paint, silver and gold in mineral ores, fluorescent lamps,
barometer, thermometer, blood pressure monitor, cosmetics.
According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Asia’s rapid economic growth has
accelerated the growth of industries that use mercury in production, making it the largest source of mercury,
accounting for nearly 50% of the world’s waste.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s 2016 national mercury inventory report, Vietnam has four
major production sectors related to the use and emission of mercury: the manufacture and use of lighting
equipment: fuel use coal in industrial activities; Use of mercury and compounds in the health sector and smallscale manual gold mining. Total amount of mercury imported into Vietnam in 2014 is about 14000 kg.
However, there is no investigation to clarify the path and purpose of the use of mercury and mercury
compounds sold in the domestic market.
In October 2013, Vietnam signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which shows the concern and
attention of state management agencies on mercury pollution, including monitoring, pollution control, minimize
mercury using and emissions.
The toxicity of mercury depends on its chemical form. In general, inorganic mercury is more toxic than
organic mercury, mercury element and sulfide mercury are less toxic. The only form of mercury is methyl
mercury, which can accumulate in fatty tissues, as well as in fish and other animals. Therefore, the
determination of the content of different chemical forms of mercury in environmental samples, biological
samples is very important, especially the sediment samples which accumulate many pollutants from the waste
sources and are the habitats for many aquatic plants.
Currently, there are a number of scientific studies on the method of determining mercury forms in
different samples in the world, but there are not many comprehensive studies on sample processing to extract
existing forms of mercury in sediment samples. The International Organizations and countries haven’t also
issued standards and guidelines for the determining mercury species in sediment samples except for the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard. In Vietnam, there is no standard procedure for the analysis
of total mercury content and mercury species in sediment samples as there are very few studies evaluating the
presence of mercury and its forms in the environment.
Therefore, the study on “Study on the determination of mercury species in sediment using selective
extraction technique” was conducted