1. Introduction
Mercury occurs naturally, in low concentrations, in all compartments
of the environment. There is a continuous flux of mercury among the
hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. However, the
mainway for the human exposure is the consumption of fish and seafood
contaminated with organic mercury, which is bioaccumulative [1,2].
The inorganic mercury, after the alkylation process, becomes more
liposoluble, which is anindispensable condition for its transport through
the cellular membranes. Such phenomenon occurs in invertebrates, fish,
mammals and in aquatic plants. The inorganic species of the metal,
except elemental mercury, and the methylmercury has the capacity to
react with intramolecular ligands, what can explain the high degree of
accumulation of these composites [1,3].
In view of these facts, there is an increasing demand for the
development of fast and sensitive procedures for the determination of
toxic species in biological materials. For mercury determination in
these samples, cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry (CV AAS)