Monitoring of Airborne Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in the Urban Area by Means of Road Dust and Camphor Tree Barks

Abstract

Urban road dust and camphor tree bark samples were collected in June of 2009 from Suzhou, Wuxi and Nantong in the Yangtze River Delta, China. Eight polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners 47, 100, 99,154, 153, 183 and 209) were measured to determine the levels and compositional profiles in the samples. The concentrations of Σ 7 PBDEs and BDE-209 ranged from N.D to 35.5 μg/kg and 4.01 to 1439 μg/kg dry weight (dw) in the road dust samples, 5.1 to 799 μg/kg and 121 to 3243 μg/kg lipid weight (lw) in the tree bark samples, respectively. BDE-209 was the predominant congener (contributing to 64.1-99.8% of Σ 8 PBDEs) in all samples. Apart from fugitive emissions from PBDE-containing products, combustion processes and vehicles emissions could also contribute BDE-209 to the road dust and tree bark samples. On average, the PBDEs contamination degree in three cities follow the order of Nantong > Suzhou > Wuxi. Road dust and tree bark proved to be an effective accumulator to reflect the degree of atmospheric PBDEs pollutants in the urban environment.

Vehicles as outdoor BFR sources: Evidence from an investigation of BFR occurrence in road dust

“…SI-3 Similar to the former reported dominance of PBDEs in vehicle dust, this study verified the dominance of PBDEs in RD, greater than other BFRs. Further, with BDE-209 as the dominant congener, the PBDE congener profiles in this study are similar to previous results found for urban RD (Cao et al, 2014;Shi et al, 2014) and road soils from e-waste (Luo et al, 2009) and plastic waste (Tang et al, 2016) recycling region from China, probably due to more extensive…”

“…Concentrations of ∑ 9 BFRs ranged from 17.0 to 458 ng g -1 , with a geometric mean of 139 ng g -1 , at levels 1-3 orders of magnitude lower than in vehicle dust reported elsewhere (Besis and Samara, 2012;Coelho et al, 2014). PBDE concentrations in RD in this study are comparable with those in urban RD from Suzhou, Wuxi and Nantong in the Yangtze River Delta, China (geometric mean concentration of ∑ 8 PBDEs including BDE-209 was 169 ng g -1 ) (Shi et al, 2014), but was much lower than that in urban RD from Beijing, China (concentration of 9 PBDEs including BDE-209 were 23700 ng g -1 in a pooled sample) (Cao et al, 2014), which indicates substantial variation between cities in China.…”

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and heavy metals in road dusts from a plastic waste recycling area in north China: implications for human health

“…BDE-183, one of the primary congeners found in octa-BDE products (La Guardia et al 2006), had the second highest proportion, contributing on average 5.25 % to the Σ 21 PBDE concentrations in our dust samples. Similar results for outdoor or road dusts were reported elsewhere in China (Yu et al Shi et al 2014). Relatively high concentrations of the higher molecular weight PBDE congeners were also found in our samples.…”

“…However, BDE-209 and Σ 21 PBDE concentrations in the dusts in our study area were comparable to concentrations observed in road dusts from e-waste recycling sites (Wang et al 2010;Leung et al 2011). The level of PBDE contamination in road dusts in Wen'an was an order of magnitude higher than in Suzhou, Nantong, Wuxi, Shantou, and Wenling, China (Shi et al 2014). Our results were 12 orders of magnitude higher than in regional outdoor dusts from Shantou and Shanghai (Leung et al 2011;Wu et al 2015).…”

“…The congener profiles of PBDEs in our dust samples were different from those found in other studies. In some e-waste recycling areas in China, in addition to BDE-209 and BDE-183, BDE-47 and BDE-99 were clearly enriched in road dusts, reflecting the previous use of these commercial PBDEs in electronic products (Leung et al 2011;Shi et al 2014;Xu et al 2015). Xu et al (2015) reported that BDE-47 and BDE-99 contributed 24.4 and 26.5 % to PBDE concentrations in outdoor dust samples from e-waste workshops in Taizhou.…”