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

Shuangxin Shi,Lifei Zhang Zhang,Liang Dong,Wenlong Yang,Xiulan Zhang,Li Zhou,Yeru Huang

doi:10.4209/aaqr.2012.11.0304

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 (BDE-28, 47, 100, 99,154, 153, 183 and 209) were measured to determine the levels and compositional profiles in the samples. The concentrations of Σ7PBDEs 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 Σ8PBDEs) 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.

Highlights

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are extensively used as flame retardants in various polymers, and especially in electronic equipment such as computers and television sets (de Wit, 2002)
The results suggested that the high levels of PBDEs in the tree bark samples might be caused by the large amount of PBDEs emissions from the investigated cities
Urban road dust and camphor tree bark were selected as the accumulator to reflect the degree of airborne PBDEs pollutants in the emerging industrial cities in China

Summary

Introduction

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are extensively used as flame retardants in various polymers, and especially in electronic equipment such as computers and television sets (de Wit, 2002). PBDEs are ‘additive’ flame retardants and may volatilize into ambient air during production, use and disposal of PBDEs-containing products (de Wit, 2002). Recent studies demonstrated that the lighter brominated PBDEs in urban ambient air mainly come from indoor air, while the highly brominated ones mainly come from combustion sources (Wang et al, 2010, 2011). The studies demonstrated that PBDEs could form or not be completely destroyed in combustion processes.

Methods

Results

Conclusion