Reflection of concentrations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in health risk assessment: A case study in sediments from the metropolitan river, North China

Abstract

As a developed city in North China, Tsingtao is believed to be suffering from the pollution of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) due to the rapid industrialization and urbanization in recent years. In this work, 8 PBDE congeners were detected in sediments from Moshui River, Tsingtao. BDE-209 and sum of 7 low brominated PBDE congeners (∑7PBDEs, excluding BDE-209) ranged from 10.2 × 10−3 to 237 × 10−3 mg kg−1 and from 1.62 × 10−3 to 23.1 × 10−3 mg kg−1 d.w., respectively. PBDE concentrations decreased in the order of midstream > downstream > upstream, attributing to the discrepancies in anthropogenic activities among these areas. Principal component analysis coupled with multiple linear regression (PCA-MLR) revealed that 24.4% of PBDEs were derived from surface runoff of contaminated soils, 58.2% from direct discharge of local sources and 17.4% from atmospheric deposition. The probabilistic health risk assessment of PBDEs was performed by using Monte Carlo simulation. The carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks based on total PBDEs were low for children and teens, whilst severe for adults. However, based on bioaccessible PBDEs (in vitro gastrointestinal model), there was no obvious health risk for the three age groups. To the best of our knowledge, the present study was the first attempt to assess the health risk by using bioaccessible PBDEs in sediments.