Occurrence of halogenated and organophosphate flame retardants in sediment and fish samples from three European river basins

Monica Giulivo,Ettore Capri,Eleni Kalogianni,Radmila Milacic,Bruno Majone,Federico Ferrari,Ethel Eljarrat,Damià Barceló

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.02.056

Abstract

Classic (polybromodiphenyl ethers, PBDEs) and emerging halogenated flame retardants (HFRs) such as decabromodiphenyl ethane (DBDPE) and halogenated norbornenes, as well as organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs) were analysed in 52 sediments and 27 fish samples from three European river basins, namely the Evrotas (Greece), the Adige (Italy) and the Sava (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia). This is the first time that FR levels have been reported in these three European river basins. The highest contamination was found in the Adige and Sava rivers, whereas lower values were obtained for the Evrotas. The levels in sediment samples ranged between 0.25 and 34.0ng/g dw, and between 0.31 and 549ng/g dw, for HFRs and OPFRs respectively. As regards levels in fish, concentrations ranged between 9.32 and 461ng/g lw and between 14.4 and 650ng/g lw, for HFRs and OPFRs, respectively. Thus, whereas OPFR values were higher in sediments, similar concentrations (in the Evrotas) and even lower concentrations than HFRs (Sava) were found for OPFRs in the fish samples, indicating the lower bioaccumulation potential of OPFRs. Biota to sediment accumulation factors (BSAFs) were calculated and higher values were obtained for HFRs compared to those assessed for OPFRs.

Highlights

IntroductionIn most cases they are not fixed in the polymer by chemical binding, and can freely leak to the surrounding environment
The t-test suggests that halogenated FRs (HFRs) levels did not change significantly in the first and the second sampling campaign (t-test, p N 0.05) for the Evrotas and Adige rivers, whereas for the River Sava significant differences were observed between the two sampling campaigns (p ≤ 0.05)
This is the first time that HFRs and organophosphorus-containing FRs (OPFRs) have been analysed in sediment and biota samples collected from the Evrotas, Adige and Sava river basins

Summary

Introduction

In most cases they are not fixed in the polymer by chemical binding, and can freely leak to the surrounding environment These compounds are ubiquitous and a number of scientific articles have dealt with their occurrence in different abiotic and biotic matrices such as sediment (Barón et al, 2014a; Brandsma et al, 2015; Matsukami et al, 2015; Sühring et al, 2016; Zhen et al, 2016), air (Newton et al, 2015; Vorkamp et al, 2015; Xu et al, 2016), soil (Wang et al, 2015a; Li et al, 2016) or fish tissue (Barón et al, 2014b; Greaves et al, 2016; Matsukami et al, 2016)

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