title: Concentration and congener patterns of polychlorinated biphenyls in industrial and municipal waste incinerator flue gas, Korea.
abstract: In the present study, individual PCB congeners were determined in the flue gases of 10 industrial and 5 municipal solid waste incinerators using HRGC/HRMS. The total PCBs concentration of all congeners (168 tetra to deca-chlorinated congeners) ranged from 26 to 343 ng/Nm(3), and from 36 to 1095 ng/Nm(3) in industrial waste incinerators (IWI) and municipal solid waste incinerators (MSWI), respectively. The total TEQ concentrations of PCBs, calculated using WHO-TEF values, varied from 0.001 to 0.55 ng-TEQ/Nm(3) and from 0.001 to 8.29 ng-TEQ/Nm(3) in the industrial waste incinerators and municipal solid waste incinerators, respectively. In all samples, the contribution of PCB 126 to total TEQ of PCBs was higher than 87%. The homologue pattern of PCBs in the incinerator flue gas samples was generally dominated by tetra- and penta-CBs. The distribution of other homologues was less than 15% in most of the incinerators. The fraction of co-PCBs against to total PCBs ranged from 1% to 19% and from 2% to 31% in IWI and MSWI flue gas samples. Results of the present study reveal that the presence of non-ortho PCB congeners in the flue gas originated form the combustion process.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Environmental Research, Kyoungseo-dong, Seo-gu, Incheon, Korea.
authors.forename: Sun-Kyoung
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Kyoung-Soo
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jae-Cheon
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: You
authors.forename: Byung-Joo
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Jong-Guk
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry*; D001713:Biphenyl Compounds / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry*; D002713:Chlorine / Q000737:chemistry*; D002947:Cities; D004147:Dioxins / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D005740:Gases / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D017745:Incineration; D007220:Industrial Waste / Q000032:analysis*; D007723:Korea
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D001713:Biphenyl Compounds; D004147:Dioxins; D005740:Gases; D007220:Industrial Waste; D002713:Chlorine