Atmospheric polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in the United Kingdom

Atmospheric Occurrence and Gas-Particle Partitioning of PBDEs in an Industrialised and Urban Area of Florence, Italy

“…Instead, there exist in literature studies where much higher concentrations were reported for other urban sites such as Lake Maggiore, Italy (101 pg/m 3 ) (Mariani et al, 2008) and Guangzhou, China (76-3600 pg/m 3 ) (Chen et al, 2006). The study of Birgul et al (2012) reported levels of Σ 6 PBDEs at the order of < 5 pg/m 3 for the year 2010, in four sites in the UK, however they reported that at the same places, the levels of PBDEs have decreased substantially over the last 10 years.…”

“…The atmospheric fate of PBDEs (i.e., deposition, degradation, long range transport) is strongly influenced by their physical chemical properties and meteorological factors (particularly temperature, wind speed and direction) which drive, not only their distribution between the vapour and particulate phases, but also their atmospheric dispersion and transport. Although several studies have reported the occurrence and levels of PBDEs in the atmosphere (Lee et al, 2004;Li et al, 2009;Birgul et al, 2012;Martellini et al, 2012a;Piazza et al, 2013), there is scarce data about the gas/particle PBDE distributions and PBDE air concentrations in Italy and only few studies in general reporting on the partitioning of PBDEs in the atmosphere (Shoeib et al, 2004;Chen et al, 2006;Cetin andOdabasi, 2008, Lin et al, 2012). Measuring the ambient concentrations of particle-bound contaminants is important for evaluating the adverse health effects arising from the inhalation of suspended particulate matter in urban areas.…”

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers in atmosphere from three different typical industrial areas in Beijing, China

“…Moreover, PBDEs in the atmosphere can enter the human body through the respiratory tract (inhalation and dust ingestion), and become concentrated in the human body (Fitzgerald et al, 2012;Yu et al, 2012;Arellano et al, 2013;Krol et al, 2014). Previous studies have shown that high concentrations of PBDEs may be associated with their transport patterns (Sofuoglu et al, 2013), or may originate from emissions from products, especially electrical equipment (Zhang et al, 2011;Birgul et al, 2012). Moreover, many studies have demonstrated that PBDE pollution in industrial or urban areas is much higher than in rural areas (Zhang et al, 2008;Syed et al, 2013).…”

Car Engines Air Filters. A Useful Ambient Air Sampler and/or a Possible Hazardous Waste?

“…Never the less, CAFs can be the ideal medium for a big number of pollutants, due to the variety of chemicals that bind on particulate matter (PM). Almost all important hydrophobic organic compounds have been detected on atmospheric PM; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, Cincinelli et al, 2007;Castro-Jimenez et al, 2012;Martellini et al, 2012), persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins/furans (PCDD/Fs, Kouimtzis et al, 2002;Katsoyiannis et al, 2010), polybrominated diphenylethers (Wang et al, 2010;Ni et al, 2011;Birgul et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2012;Besis et al, 2014;Cincinelli et al, 2014), organochlorine pesticides (Wang et al, 2008), aliphatic hydrocarbons (Cincinelli et al, 2004, Schnelle-Kreis, 2005Wang et al, 2013), levoglucosan as well as almost all important inorganic contaminants (like heavy metals, Pb, Cd, Ni, Cr, V, Mn, Cu and Fe, Samara and Voutsa, 2005;Berg et al, 2008). Many of these chemicals are associated with carcinogenicity, and some of them (Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), As, Cd, Hg, Ni) are regulated within the European Union by the Council Directive 2004/107/EC.…”