Does dilute nitric acid improve the removal of exogenous heavy metals from feathers? A comparative study towards the optimization of the cleaning procedure of feather samples prior to metal analysis
| Autor: | Maria Aloupi, Elpida Ferentinou, Triantafyllos Akriotis, Olga-Maria Zaharaki |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
animal structures
Metal contamination Health Toxicology and Mutagenesis 0211 other engineering and technologies 02 engineering and technology 010501 environmental sciences 01 natural sciences Nitric Acid Birds chemistry.chemical_compound Nitric acid Metals Heavy Animals 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Particulate metal 021110 strategic defence & security studies Public Health Environmental and Occupational Health Heavy metals General Medicine Metal analysis Contamination Feathers Pulp and paper industry Pollution chemistry Feather visual_art visual_art.visual_art_medium Total removal Environmental Pollutants Biological Monitoring |
| Zdroj: | Ecotoxicology and environmental safety. 200 |
| ISSN: | 1090-2414 |
| Popis: | Feather analysis has been widely used as a biomonitoring tool to assess metal contamination in birds, as their sampling is a non-destructive and ethically preferable technique. However, for feathers to be useful as a biomonitor of heavy metals, exogenous contamination has to be efficiently removed. Although much effort has been put into this, no washing procedure has yet proven able to ensure the total removal of the surface-associated metals. The purpose of this study was to propose an efficient washing procedure of feather samples prior to metal analysis, on the basis of comparison of various washing schemes designed according to previous analytical trials, and of the verification of the efficacy of the optimal scheme in cleaning intentionally contaminated feathers. Our investigation showed that dilute nitric acid alone or in combination with a detergent (Extran) or acetone under mild agitation of the samples performed better that any other cleaning scheme applied. Thus, a multi-step procedure including the sequential use of all three reagents was tested against feather samples contaminated by adsorbed or particulate metal species. The procedure was able to completely eliminate the external metal loads in all cases except for the partial removal of severe contamination with adsorbed Cd. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|
Full Text from ScienceDirect