Concentration levels, compositional profiles, and gas-particle partitioning of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in the atmosphere of an urban city in South China.
Air samples were collected in June of 2004 from four sites in the city of Guangzhou, a typical urban center in South China, to determine the levels, compositional profiles, and gas-particle distribution of 11 polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners (BDE-28, -47, -66, -100, -99, -85, -154, -153, -138, -183, and -209). The arithmetic mean atmospheric concentrations of sigmaPBDEs (sum of all target PBDE congeners except for BDE-209) in samples from the urban and city background sites were comparable to or slightly higher than those from other places around the world. The arithmetic mean atmospheric concentrations of BDE-209, however, were higherthan those in North America and Europe, and similar to the values from Japan. Congener compositions were dominated by BDE-209 in all (>70%) but an industrial site, with an average abundance of 48% for BDE-209. The PBDE patterns were generally similar to that in the technical penta-BDE mixture, Bromkal 70-5DE. Partitioning of PBDEs between the gas and particle phases (Kp) was well correlated with the subcooled liquid vapor pressure (PLO) for all of the samples, but the relationship differed between samples from different sites. The measured fractions of PBDEs in the particulate phase were compared to the predictions from the Junge-Pankow adsorption and KOA-based absorption models. The results indicated that the KOA-based model worked better than the Junge-Pankow model that tended to overestimate the particulate fractions for most PBDE congeners.
State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Protection and Resource Utilization, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China.
Lai-Guo
LG
Chen
Bi-Xian
BX
Mai
Xin-Hui
XH
Bi
She-Jun
SJ
Chen
Xin-ming
XM
Wang
Yong
Y
Ran
Xiao-jun
XJ
Luo
Guo-Ying
GY
Sheng
Jia-Mo
JM
Fu
Eddy Y
EY
Zeng
D000327:Adsorption; D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D002681:China; D002947:Cities; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D005411:Flame Retardants / Q000032:analysis*; D008956:Models, Chemical; D010647:Phenyl Ethers / Q000032:analysis*; D011075:Polybrominated Biphenyls / Q000032:analysis*
D000393:Air Pollutants; D005411:Flame Retardants; D010647:Phenyl Ethers; D011075:Polybrominated Biphenyls