Concomitant determination of PAH, PCBs, and phthalates in indoor air and dust from residential houses in the Strasbourg region of France

Abstract

Global attention is drawn to the significant issue of indoor pollution, given its direct negative impact on human health and wellness. Typically, individuals can nowadays spend 80% or more of their time in enclosed built locations where they can be prone to a multitude of harmful toxic chemicals distributed in particulate and gas phases. Therefore, a systematic efficient monitoring of such chemicals in indoor environments is urgently required to devise and implement various measures that allow their control. The objective of this study is to evaluate the concomitance occurrence of phthalates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) within the indoor settings of residential homes in Strasbourg. It focused on both the indoor air and dust samples collected in nine residential homes in Strasbourg for a one-year sampling period, February 2016 - February 2017. For this, Radiello®, SiC© foams, and Tenax-TA® were successfully introduced and used as reliable passive samplers for the aforementioned matrices. Extractions were carried out using pressurized solvent extraction (PSE) followed by ATD-GC/MSMS analysis. The findings of the presented study revealed that 12 PAHs, 18 PCBs, and 7 phthalates were regularly perceived in the indoor environments of the houses under assessment. In gaseous samples, the average concentrations of the detected pollutant were approximately 3,919, 4.3, and 601.6 ng/sampler for PAHs, PCBs, and phthalates, respectively. As for dust samples, the average concentrations of the detected pollutant were approximately 3,438, 6.2, and 1,816.2 ng/g, respectively. The obtained results showed that PCBs exhibited the lowest concentration in both matrices. However, air samples were mostly contaminated by PAHs, while dust samples showed higher levels of phthalates. These results are correlated to the physico-chemical properties of these compounds and to their origin and source of emission. The findings of this study stress the importance of indoor pollution assessment so that the risks associated with it could be controlled.