Chemical Reactivity as a Tool for Estimating Persistence

Oxidative transformation of polybrominated diphenyl ether congeners (PBDEs) and of hydroxylated PBDEs (OH-PBDEs)

“…By keeping the original concentration very low, non-water soluble compounds, such as PBDEs, can be dissolved in THF/MeOH and then extensively diluted with pure water without having glass adsorption becoming a problem. These neutral compounds can then be subjected to the previously developed oxidative degradation method to obtain their relative degradation rates and, thereby, increasing the number of substances which can be modeled and analyzed (Green and Bergman 2005) as a preliminary means of describing their persistence. This study focused on OH-PBDEs and lower brominated DEs, and developed data to show that the PBDEs are resistant to oxidation transformations via KMnO 4 reactions.…”

“…This work focuses on PBDEs and some of their metabolites, the hydroxylated polybrominated diphenyl ethers (OH-PBDEs), as part of a larger project to promote prediction of the persistence of chemicals (Green and Bergman 2005). The aim of the study was to apply a previously developed methodology to study oxidative transformation rates of PBDEs and investigate the oxidative transformation rates of hydroxylated PBDEs (Moreira Bastos et al 2008).…”

“…However, the definition of persistence remains problematic (Environment Canada 1995;Green and Bergman 2005;Kloepffer 1994;UNEP 2002). Recently, Green and Bergman proposed to assess persistence by combining information on a substance's reactivity and what is known about its physicochemical characteristics (Green and Bergman 2005).…”

“…However, the definition of persistence remains problematic (Environment Canada 1995;Green and Bergman 2005;Kloepffer 1994;UNEP 2002). Recently, Green and Bergman proposed to assess persistence by combining information on a substance's reactivity and what is known about its physicochemical characteristics (Green and Bergman 2005). Several methods have been developed to acquire such data (Eriksson 2004;Rahm 2004;Moreira Bastos et al 2008) including, most recently, a method for assessing the oxidative stability of a substance.…”

Estimation of anthropogenic organo-chlorine, bromine and iodine compounds in apolar lipid fractions of bovine milk by solid-phase extraction and neutron activation analysis (SPE–NAA)

“…Twenty-six of the OX compounds are classified as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) which are regulated for their risk to human health and wildlife [2,6]. However, the concern goes beyond these 26 POPs because many other OX compounds are both persistent and bioaccumulative [2][3][4][5][6][7] and may have potential toxicological and ecotoxicological effects. Most of the OX compounds including POPs are organochlorines (OCl) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), followed by organobromines (OBr) like hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) [8], and a relatively small number of organoiodines (OI), mostly volatile compounds, such as methylene iodide and methyl iodide [9].…”