Long-chain alkylbenzenes as molecular tracers of domestic wastes in the marine environment

Assessment of aquatic wastewater pollution in a highly industrialized zone with sediment linear alkylbenzenes

“…Thus, the internal to external ratio (I/E) for the C 12 -LABs homolog has been employed widely to indicate the degree of biodegradation of LABs [6,27,28], that is,…”

“…As a result of incomplete sulfonation, trace amounts of LABs (13%) remain in the final products and are discharged to aquatic systems along with surfactant wastewater [6]. Because of the widespread use of detergents, LABs have been detected ubiquitously in municipal wastewater effluents [6,7], wastewater-polluted areas [6,[8][9][10], and organisms near impacted points [11][12][13]. Due to high hydrophobicity (log K OW $7-10) [5], LABs tend to sorb strongly to particulate matter in wastewater and settle to the bottom sediment.…”

Application of multiple geochemical markers to investigate organic pollution in a dynamic coastal zone

“…Linear alkylbenzenes (LABs) are raw materials for producing linear alkylbenzenesulfonate surfactants and can be discharged into the environment as unsulfonated residues [4]. Therefore, LABs are highly related to and considered appropriate molecular markers of sewage pollution [5,6]. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are mainly generated from incomplete combustion of fossil fuel and biomass [7], which is typical of anthropogenic activities.…”

Tracking anthropogenic influences on the continental shelf of China with sedimentary linear alkylbenzenes (LABs)

“…Linear alkylbenzenes (LABs) have been utilized as markers of domestic waste, as they are raw materials in manufacture of linear alkylbenzene sulfonates, a widely used anionic surfactant (Eganhouse et al, 1983), and may be disposed to the environment as residues (1-3%) of commercial detergents (Eganhouse et al, 1983;Chalaux et al, 1995;Zeng et al, 1997). In fact, LABs have been ubiquitously detected in various environmental matrices, such as sediment (Eganhouse et al, 1983;Ishiwatari et al, 1983;Zhang et al, 2012;Liu et al, 2013a), municipal wastewater effluent (Eganhouse et al, 1983;Peterman and Delfino, 1990), river runoff (Takada and Ishiwatari, 1987;Ni et al, 2008), and biota (Murray et al, 1991;Phillips et al, 2001;Tsutsumi et al, 2002). Besides, LABs were suggested to be toxic (Gledhill et al, 1991;Johnson et al, 2007), where the acute toxicity of LABs to Caenorhabditis elegans in soil was reported as a lethal concentration of 1550 ng/g to cause 1% fatality in 24 h, with the 95% confidence limits in the range of 80-3360 ng/g (Johnson et al, 2007).…”

“…Besides, LABs were suggested to be toxic (Gledhill et al, 1991;Johnson et al, 2007), where the acute toxicity of LABs to Caenorhabditis elegans in soil was reported as a lethal concentration of 1550 ng/g to cause 1% fatality in 24 h, with the 95% confidence limits in the range of 80-3360 ng/g (Johnson et al, 2007). Because of these attributes, LABs are good indicators of human activities uniquely associated with sewage contamination in different regions around the world (Eganhouse et al, 1983;Takada et al, 1992;Isobe et al, 2004;Medeiros and Bícego, 2004;Luo et al, 2008;Martins et al, 2008;Ni et al, 2009;Venkatesan et al, 2010;Martins et al, 2012;Rinawati et al, 2012).…”