A review of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) pollution in indoor air environment

Abstract

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were widely used in industrial production due to the unique physical and chemical properties. As a kind of persistent organic pollutants, the PCBs would lead to environment pollution and cause serious problems for human health. Thus, they have been banned since the 1980s due to the environment pollution in the past years. Indoor air is the most direct and important environment medium to human beings; thus, the PCBs pollution research in indoor air is important for the protection of human health. This paper introduces the industrial application and potential harm of PCBs, summarizes the sampling, extracting, and analytical methods of environment monitoring, and compares the indoor air levels of urban areas with those of industrial areas in different countries according to various reports. This paper can provide a basic summary for PCBs pollution control in the indoor air environment.

Occurrence, Composition Profiles and Potential Risk Assessment of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (Pcbs) in Transformer Oils

“…The measurements performed on the provided samples have led to the results systematized in Table 4. The analysis of the results presented in Table 4 shows that the density of oils varies between 0.8700 and 0.9082 g/cm 3 , and the viscosity of samples varies from 1.14 to 1.29 °E. Non-specific tests were standardized for Arochlor 1242 (i.e., PCB blank sample), with a chlorine content of 42%.…”

“…The density of the oil samples, determined at 20°C, shows values in the range of 0.870 g/cm 3 (S8) and 0.908 g/cm 3 (S10), with an average value of 0.884 g/cm 3 and standard deviation of 0.011 g/cm 3 . The recorded values for flash point are similar for all samples: 137-141°C, with an average value of 138.667±1.543°C.…”

“…Polychlorinated biphenyls belong to a broad class of chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons with a biphenyl structure (i.e., two phenyl rings (C 6 H 5 ) 2 and general formula C 12 H( 10-n )Cl n ) and at least one hydrogen atom substituted by a chlorine atom (Fig. 1) [3]. Molecules with the same degree of chlorination are isomers; therefore, ten possible isomer groups of PCBs are revealed (Table 1) [1].…”

The potential disruption of estrogen and androgen homeostasis and adipocyte differentiation by metabolites of common airborne polychlorinated biphenyls

“…Some of the coplanar PCBs are Ah-receptor agonists [30]. PCBs are thermodynamically stable compounds that are lipophilic, have very low reactivity, and low water solubility [1, 2,8,31]. These chemical properties made them desirable for use in industrial applications, but enable their persistence in the environment and resistance to degradation [5].…”

“…PCBs that have fewer than 5 substituted chlorine atoms are often referred to as lower-chlorinated PCBs (LC-PCBs). There has been growing interest in the LC-PCBs because they are volatile, humans are subject to inhalation in indoor environment, and they are known to disrupt endocrine function [7][8][9][10][11]. The LC-PCBs are metabolized by cytochrome P450 enzymes, and further metabolism can take place by sulfation, glucuronidation, and other pathways [12].…”