Concentration of inorganic and total arsenic in fish from industrially polluted water

Overview

Norin, Vahter, Christakopoulos, and Sandstrom measured total arsenic and inorganic arsenic in fish from arsenic-polluted and reference brackish and freshwater sites in Sweden. The source reports fish meat and liver on a wet-weight basis. It is useful because total arsenic and inorganic arsenic are quantified separately; total arsenic is not a proxy for inorganic arsenic.

Key numbers

Table 1 reports fish-meat concentrations on a wet-weight basis as As in ug As/g; the extracted PDF text renders the micro sign as p. Inorganic arsenic values are duplicate determinations on pooled samples.

The abstract summarizes total arsenic in fish from polluted brackish water as 0.2-2.6 ug As/g fish meat and polluted freshwater as 0.05-0.24 ug As/g fish meat; these were 1.4-5 times higher than corresponding unpolluted waters. For most fish species, inorganic arsenic constituted 5-12% of total arsenic, corresponding to 0.01-0.15 ug As/g fish meat.

The Results text states that the highest total arsenic concentrations were in fourhorn sculpin (2.6 +/- 0.94 ug As/g) and Baltic herring (1.6 +/- 0.51 ug As/g) from the polluted brackish-water area. Freshwater fish generally had total arsenic below 0.3 ug As/g, although pike from polluted Lake Bodatrask had a significantly higher total arsenic concentration than pike from the reference lakes.

For liver, Table 2 reports total arsenic and inorganic arsenic separately. Examples include polluted-brackish perch liver total arsenic (As) 1.8 +/- 0.48 ug As/g with inorganic arsenic (iAs) 0.07;0.06, and polluted-brackish pike liver total As 0.43 +/- 0.08 ug As/g with iAs 0.06;0.06.

Methods (brief)

Fish were captured mainly by net and stored at -20 °C until analysis. Total arsenic was measured in meat and liver from four to five fish of each species by AAS after dry ashing and arsine generation. Inorganic arsenic was measured in pooled 5 g samples using HBr/HCl distillation based on Lunde and modified by Flanjak, followed by AAS. NBS standard water and neutron activation analysis cross-checks were used for quality control.

Implications

This source supplies direct fish occurrence evidence and a clear speciation warning: polluted-water fish accumulated more total arsenic, but the major part of arsenic remained organic, and inorganic arsenic was a smaller measured fraction. Product routing should preserve fish-meat wet-weight basis and keep brackish/freshwater and polluted/reference context visible. Total arsenic values from this paper must not be pooled as inorganic arsenic.

Update history

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