Persistent organic pollutants in atmospheric deposition and biomonitoring with Tillandsia usneoides (L.) in an industrialized area in Rio de Janeiro state, southeast Brazil – Part II: PCB and PAH

Distribution and sources of bioaccumulative air pollutants at Mezquital Valley, Mexico, as reflected by the atmospheric plant <i>Tillandsia recurvata</i> L.

“…No difference was clear between the total PAH at MV and one heavily polluted site at Mexico City measured by Hwang et al (2003) with pine needles, a morphologically and physiologically different receptor. The mean total PAH reported for T. usneoides from polluted sites in Río de Janeiro (De Sousa et al, 2007) doubled the mean value at MV. Nevertheless, the most polluted MV sites had similar or slightly different total PAH (1284-1748 ng g −1 ) than the polluted sites at Rio de Janeiro, and no MV site had lower total PAH than unpolluted Brazilian sites (93 to 175 ng g −1 ).…”

“…Tillandsia recurvata has some physiological resistance to high levels of O 3 and SO 2 (Benzig et al, 1992), which may partially explain why is it so abundant at the polluted MV. This and other atmospheric Tillandsia species have been used as in situ air pollution biomonitors in some southern US states and Latin-American countries, where this genus is exclusively distributed (e.g., De Sousa et al, 2007;Husk et al, 2004;Pignata et al, 2002;Pyatt et al, 1999;Schrimpff, 1984;Smodiš et al, 2004;Wannaz et al, 2006a, b). Successful transplanting of Tillandsia from rural into urban areas for similar purposes has been reported by Brighina et al (2002), Figuereido et al (2007), and Malm et al (1998).…”

Application of a Bioassay Using DR-EcoScreen Cells to the Determination of Dioxins in Ambient Air: A Comparative Study with HRGC-HRMS Analysis

“…Effectiveness of the Cleanup Procedure in the DR-EcoScreen Cell Assay of Ambient Air Samples. Ambient air contains large quantities of various PAHs (21), and most of the AhR agonistic activity in these samples is derived from that of the PAHs (22). Therefore, when determining the dioxins in these samples using an AhR-dependent bioassay, PAHs have to be removed in an appropriate manner.…”

Atmospheric deposition of polychlorinated dibenzo-dioxins/furans (PCDD/Fs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in the vicinity of shredding facilities in Wallonia (Belgium)

“…day in summer and winter respectively) (Bozlaker et al, 2008). On the other hand, our measurements were similar to those reported by Tasdemir and Holsen (2005) in Chicago between June and October 2005 (mean level: 240 ng/m 2 .day) but were higher than those observed in the urban area of Paris (France) in 1989 (mean level: 79.5 ng/m 2 .day) (Granier and Chevreuil, 1997), in the Corpus Christi Bay (Texas, USA) between August 1998 and September 1999 (mean level: 2.7 ng/m 2 .day) (Park et al, 2002), in Volta Redonda (an highly industrialized region in Brasil) (deposition levels ranging from 16.9 to 313.7 ng/m 2 .day) and in the Itatiaia National Park (Brasil) (range: 8.3-81.6 ng/m 2 .day) in 2003(de Souza Pereira et al, 2007 or during the recent investigations (sampling campaign lasted from July 2015 to March 2017) performed in Campania region (Italy) (median level of the sum of 18 PCBs: 0.2 ng/m 2 .day) (Qu et al, 2019). Note that the authors of the studies discussed above each used a different method to measure/estimate total PCBs (only de Souza Pereira et al, 2007 referred to 5 × ∑ 6PCBs DIN like us) which may hamper the comparisons.…”