Polybrominated diphenyl ethers and hexabromocyclododecane in sediment and fish from a Swedish River

Abstract

Fish and sediments from several places along the Swedish River Viskan, sampled in 1995, were analyzed for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD). The samples were collected up‐ and downstream from several possible point sources (textile industries) for these compounds. Tetrabromodiphenyl ethers (TeBDEs), pentabromodiphenyl ethers (PeBDEs), and decabromodiphenyl ether (DeBDE [BDE209]) were found in sediment. Tetrabromodiphenyl ethers and PeBDEs were also found in fish. Hexabromocyclododecane was identified in sediment and fish. Large fish to sediment ratios for TeBDE, PeBDEs, and HBCD indicate that these are highly bioavailable, whereas BDE209 seems not to be as bioavailable. The lowest PBDE and HBCD levels were found upstream of the industries and concentrations generally increased progressively further downstream as more industries were passed. This is in agreement with earlier investigations of PBDEs in fish from the same river. Many brominated compounds are photolabile, which can complicate their analysis. Under the conditions used in this investigation it was observed that BDE209 in a solvent that was subject to the clean‐up procedure partly decomposed to compounds with shorter retention times, whereas BDE209 seemed to be stable in the sample extracts. Another matrix effect could be observed in the increased sensitivity obtained for some of the investigated compounds in fish and sediment extracts as compared to standard solutions. This effect may obscure analytical results obtained with electron capture mass spectrometric detections.

Occurrence of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers, Polychlorinated Biphenyls, and Phthalates in Freshwater Fish From the Orge River (Ile-de France)

“…BDE-209, the main compound in sediment, was detected in 9% of the individuals for roach, 13% for perch, and 20% for chub, which is characterized by a benthic habitat nearby sediment. Our results confirm the low bioaccumulation of this compound, related to its poor bioavailability and to debromation activities in vivo, which has been widely documented in the literature (Sellström et al 1998;Burreau et al 2004). Contrary to PBDE, the PCB pattern of fish was similar to that of sediment, with CB-153, -138, and -180 as main congeners, and to that of water with CB-153 and -138 as main congeners (Fig.…”

Persistent Organic Pollutants in sediment and fish in the River Thames Catchment (UK)

“…For the 6 BDEs and the ICES 7 PCBs, the BSAF factors were a bit lower than those reported for the same fish species from the Orge River (France) (Teil et al, 2012). The BSAF factors for BDE 28 and BDE 47 were much higher than those for other congeners, which is consistent with the findings of Teil et al (2012) and Sellström et al (1998).…”

“…up to 4 or 5 µg/kg dry weight for BDE 99 and BDE 47 respectively in River Viskan, Sweden 1995 (Sellström et al, 1998); 105-400 µg/kg dw for the sum of 27 PCBs (ICES 7 PCBs 1 contributed about half of that) and up to 272 µg/kg dw for the sum of 10 tri-to hexa-BDEs (including the 6 commonly monitored ones) in the Scheldt river, Belgium (Covaci et al, 2005;Vane et al, 2007). In the UK, high levels organic pollutants have been observed in the Mersey, Clyde, and Tyne estuaries (Vane et al, 2007;Vane et al, 2010;Nicolaus et al, 2015).…”

Determination of decabromodiphenyl ether in sediments using selective pressurized liquid extraction followed by GC–NCI-MS

“…In general, our levels are similar to those found in river sediments in Japan, in the urban area of Osaka (between 33 and 390 ng g -1 d.w.) [19]. Moreover, similar results were obtained on the river Viskan (Sweden), with contamination levels between 68 and 390 ng g -1 d.w. [11]. Other studies reported higher PBDE-209 concentrations in sediment samples.…”

“…Methods for determination of PBDE-209 in environmental samples are based on extraction with organic solvents (hexane, toluene, hexane-acetone mixtures, or dichloromethane) or supercritical-fluid extraction (with CO 2 or CO 2 with modifiers such as methanol, acetone, and diethylamine) [7] and further clean-up by adsorption chromatography [8] or solid-phase extraction (SPE) [9]. Finally, qualitative and quantitative analysis were carried out using GC-NCI-MS, with care to avoid long exposures to elevated temperatures by using short chromatographic columns [10,11]. Moreover, two injection systems were tested for PBDE-209 analysis -splitless and on-column injection [12].…”