title: Atmospheric concentrations of persistent organic pollutants over the Pacific Ocean near southern Taiwan and the northern Philippines.
abstract: This study investigates the atmospheric occurrence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) over the Pacific Ocean near southern Taiwan and the northern Philippines. We determined sixty-six compounds, including polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (DLPCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), as well as polychlorinated diphenyl ethers (PCDEs), polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PBDD/Fs), and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), in air samples simultaneously collected from the offshore oceanic atmosphere (n=6) and over a rural area (n=2). We calculated the atmospheric World Health Organization 2005 toxic equivalency levels (WHO2005-TEQ), for the total dioxin-like POPs, including PCDD/Fs, DLPCBs, and PBDD/Fs, being 0.00612 pg WHO2005-TEQ/m(3) and 0.0138 pg WHO2005-TEQ/m(3) over the ocean and land, respectively. We found unexpected lower averaged atmospheric PBDE concentrations in the rural area (15.9 pg/m(3)) than over the ocean (31.1 pg/m(3)) due to higher levels of the BDE209 congener, although the difference was not statistically significant. We have compared and reported our field results with previously published datasets over the global oceans, which suggest PCBs and PBDEs are the dominant chemical contaminants in the global oceanic atmosphere among these halogenated POPs (e.g. PCBs and Σdi-hepta PBDEs could be found in the range of 0.09-48.7 and 8.07-94.0 pg/m(3), respectively, including our dataset). However, there are still very few investigations on the global atmospheric levels of PBDD/Fs, PCDEs and PBBs and our data sums to these earlier studies. Finally, we point out that the halogenated POPs originated from Taiwan or the continental East Asia which could easily reach remote ocean sites via atmospheric transport.
authors.affiliation: Emerging Compounds Research Center, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Neipu, Pingtung County 912, Taiwan.
authors.forename: How-Ran
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Chao
authors.affiliation: Emerging Compounds Research Center, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Neipu, Pingtung County 912, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Ding-Yan
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Taiwan Ocean Research Institute, National Applied Research Laboratories, Kaohsiung City 852, Taiwan. Electronic address: littlefish3@short.idv.tw.
authors.forename: Kuang-Yu
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Emerging Compounds Research Center, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Neipu, Pingtung County 912, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Yan-Yu
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Gou
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Tsyr-Huei
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Chiou
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Wen-Jhy
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Emerging Compounds Research Center, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Neipu, Pingtung County 912, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Shui-Jen
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics, Cheng Shiu University, Kaohsiung City 833, Taiwan. Electronic address: lcwang@csu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Lin-Chi
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D001272:Atmosphere / Q000737:chemistry*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers / Q000032:analysis; D010140:Pacific Ocean; D010679:Philippines; D011075:Polybrominated Biphenyls; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls / Q000032:analysis; D000072317:Polychlorinated Dibenzodioxins / Q000032:analysis; D013624:Taiwan
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers; D011075:Polybrominated Biphenyls; D000072317:Polychlorinated Dibenzodioxins; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls
keywords: Atmosphere; Dioxins; Ocean; Persistent organic pollutants (POPs); Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs); Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)