Mercury Isotope Fractionation during Dark Abiotic Reduction of Hg(II) by Dissolved, Surface-Bound, and Structural Fe(II)

Summary

Stable mercury (Hg) isotope ratios are an emerging tracer for biogeochemical transformations in environmental systems, but their application requires knowledge of isotopic enrichment factors for individual processes. We investigated Hg isotope fractionation during dark, abiotic reduction of Hg(II) by dissolved iron(Fe)(II), magnetite, and Fe(II) sorbed to boehmite or goethite by analyzing both the reactants and products of laboratory experiments. For homogeneous reduction of Hg(II) by dissolved Fe(II) in continuously purged reactors, the results followed a Rayleigh distillation model with enrichment factors of −2.20 ± 0.16‰ (ϵ²⁰²Hg) and 0.21 ± 0.02‰ (E¹⁹⁹Hg). In closed system experiments, allowing reequilibration, the initial kinetic fractionation was overprinted by isotope exchange and followed a linear equilibrium model with −2.44 ± 0.17‰ (ϵ²⁰²Hg) and 0.34 ± 0.02‰ (E¹⁹⁹Hg). Heterogeneous Hg(II) reduction by magnetite caused a smaller isotopic fractionation (−1.38 ± 0.07 and 0.13 ± 0.01‰), whereas the extent of isotopic fractionation of the sorbed Fe(II) experiments was similar to the kinetic homogeneous case. Small mass-independent fractionation of even-mass Hg isotopes with 0.02 ± 0.003‰ (E²⁰⁰Hg) and ≈ −0.02 ± 0.01‰ (E²⁰⁴Hg) was consistent with theoretical predictions for the nuclear volume effect. This study contributes significantly to the database of Hg isotope enrichment factors for specific processes. Our findings show that Hg(II) reduction by dissolved Fe(II) in open systems results in a kinetic MDF with a larger ϵ compared to other abiotic reduction pathways, and combining MDF with the observed MIF allows the distinction from photochemical or microbial Hg(II) reduction pathways.