Concentrations, Sources, and Potential Human Health Risks of PCDD/Fs, dl-PCBs, and PAHs in Rural Atmosphere Around Chemical Plants in Jiangsu Province, China

Atmospheric Concentrations and Health Implications of PAHs, PCBs and PCDD/Fs in the Vicinity of a Heavily Industrialized Site in Greece

“…The exposure in this area was considered significant as it exceeded the EPA limit of 1 × 10 −6 and, as it is obvious in Table 8, cancer risks derived from PAHs, PCDD/Fs, and dlPCBs were individually above this threshold, with highest risk derived from PAHs (2.4 × 10 −5 ). Cancer risks calculated in this study were higher than in the literature [2,45,56], but lower than the cancer risk (over 6.2 × 10 −5 ) in Jiangsu Province, China, a place around chemical plants [16]. It has to be clarified here that risk evaluation for PCDD/Fs and dlPCBs may has been underestimated, as some particularly toxic congeners of PCDD/Fs (e.g., 2,3,7,8 TCDD, 1,2,3,7,8 PeCDD) and all dlPCBs are mostly presented in gas phase.…”

“…PCBs emissions may be affected of the industries and chemical plants of Thriassion Plain while uncontrolled combustions of plastic may also enrich the aerosols with PCBs. The third factor (22.9% of variance) was associated with petrogenic, low molecular weight PAHs and DBaA, suggesting a common petrogenic origin [16]. The oil refineries in this site are a dominant source of emissions, and volatile compounds could release into the atmosphere from their petroleum depositories.…”

“…Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software package (IBM SPSS statistics version 24). This statistical software package was suitable for multivariate analysis of the environmental data [16,[35][36][37][38][39]. Shapiro-Wilk and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests used to study whether the data followed normal distribution with a value of p > 0.05 indicated normal distribution.…”

“…However, in environmental studies, PCA is used as a tool for data compression, dimension reduction, or even filtering method for non-Gaussian (non-normal) distributed and/or nonlinear data. Application of PCA for source apportionment purposes has been performed in many POPs' studies [16,23,39].…”

“…Similar levels of BaP were also recorded in Thessaloniki, with the average values for the cold and warm periods being 0.12 and 0.86 ng m −3 , respectively [42], while BaP concentration in Volos measured 0.60 ng m −3 [49]. Lower BaP concentrations were found in industrial sites of Istanbul, Turkey (0.39 ng m −3 ) [39], Dunkirk, France (0.29 ng m −3 ) [31], and Jiangsu Province, China (up to 0.35 ng m −3 ) [16], whereas much higher concentrations were presented in the industrial site of Shanghai, with a mean value of 5.95 ng m −3 [52].…”