title: Seasonality and indoor/outdoor relationships of flame retardants and PCBs in residential air.
abstract: This study is a systematic assessment of different houses and apartments, their ages and renovation status, indoors and outdoors, and in summer vs. winter, with a goal of bringing some insight into the major sources of semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs) and their variability. Indoor and outdoor air concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and novel flame retardants (NFRs) were determined at 17-20 homes in Czech Republic in winter and summer. Indoor concentrations were consistently higher than outdoor concentrations for all compounds; indoor/outdoor ratios ranged from 2-20, with larger differences for the current use NFRs than for legacy PCBs. Seasonal trends differed according to the use status of the compounds: the PCBs had higher summer concentrations both indoors and outdoors, suggesting volatilization as a source of PCBs to air. PBDEs had no seasonal trends indoors, but higher summer concentrations outdoors. Several NFRs (TBX, PBT, PBEB) had higher indoor concentrations in winter relative to summer. The seasonal trends in the flame retardants suggest differences in air exchange rates due to lower building ventilation in winter could be driving the concentration differences. Weak relationships were found with building age for PCBs, with higher concentrations indoors in buildings built before 1984, and with the number of electronics for PBDEs, with higher concentrations in rooms with three or more electronic items. Indoor environments are the primary contributor to human inhalation exposure to these SVOCs, due to the high percentage of time spent indoors (>90%) combined with the higher indoors levels for all the studied compounds. Exposure via the indoor environment contributed ∼96% of the total chronic daily intake via inhalation in summer and ∼98% in winter.
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX), Kamenice 753/5, 62500, Brno, Czech Republic. Electronic address: melymuk@recetox.muni.cz.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Melymuk
authors.affiliation: NILU - Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Instituttveien 18, PO Box 100, NO-2017, Kjeller, Norway. Electronic address: pbn@nilu.no.
authors.forename: Pernilla
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bohlin-Nizzetto
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX), Kamenice 753/5, 62500, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Petr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kukučka
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX), Kamenice 753/5, 62500, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Šimon
authors.initials: Š
authors.lastname: Vojta
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX), Kamenice 753/5, 62500, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jiří
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kalina
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX), Kamenice 753/5, 62500, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Čupr
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX), Kamenice 753/5, 62500, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Klánová
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000032:analysis*; D018153:Czech Republic; D005411:Flame Retardants / Q000032:analysis*; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers / Q000032:analysis*; D006798:Housing / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D019570:Inhalation Exposure / Q000032:analysis; D008297:Male; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls / Q000032:analysis*; D012621:Seasons; D014835:Volatilization
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D005411:Flame Retardants; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers; D011078:Polychlorinated Biphenyls
keywords: Flame retardants; Indoor air; Indoor sources; PCBs; Seasonal trends