Organophosphorus Flame Retardants and Plasticizers in Airborne Particles over the Northern Pacific and Indian Ocean toward the Polar Regions: Evidence for Global Occurrence

Abstract

Organophosphorus compounds (OPs) being applied as flame retardants and plasticizers were investigated in airborne particles over the Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Southern Ocean. Samples taken during two polar expeditions in 2010/11, one from East Asia to the high Arctic (CHINARE 4) and another from East Asia toward the Indian Ocean to the Antarctic (CHINARE 27), were analyzed for three halogenated OPs (tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP), tris(2-chloroisopropyl) phosphate (TCPP) and tris(1,3-dichloro-2-isopropyl) phosphate (TDCP)), four alkylated OPs (tri-n-butyl phosphate (TnBP), tri-iso-butyl phosphate (TiBP), tris(2-butoxyethyl)phosphate (TBEP), and tris(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate (TEHP)), and triphenyl phosphate (TPhP). The sum of the eight investigated OPs ranged from 230 to 2900 pg m(-3) and from 120 to 1700 pg m(-3) during CHINARE 4 and CHINARE 27, respectively. TCEP and TCPP were the predominating compounds, both over the Asian seas as well as in the polar regions, with concentrations from 19 to 2000 pg m(-3) and 22 to 620 pg m(-3), respectively. Elevated concentrations were observed in proximity to the Asian continent enhanced by continental air masses. They decreased sharply toward the open oceans where they remained relatively stable. This paper shows the first occurrence of OPs over the global oceans proving that they undergo long-range atmospheric transport over the global oceans toward the Arctic and Antarctica.

Understanding the distribution, degradation and fate of organophosphate esters in an advanced municipal sewage treatment plant based on mass flow and mass balance analysis

“…As a result, they are now widely present in various environmental matrices worldwide, including water (Wang et al, 2011;Rodil et al, 2005;Marklund et al, 2005), soil Mihajlovic et al, 2011), air (Moller et al, 2011;Moller et al, 2012), sediment (Cristale and Lacorte, 2013) and biota (Kim et al, 2011). Moreover, OPEs have already been detected in human milk (Sundkvist et al, 2010) and their metabolites were also found in human urine (van den Eede et al, 2013;Reemtsma et al, 2011;Schindler et al, 2009).…”

In vitro inhibition of lysine decarboxylase activity by organophosphate esters

“…Lysine, cadaverine, acridine orange (AO), cucurbit [7]uril (CB7), lysine decarboxylase (LDC, from Bacterium cadaveris), 2,4,6-trinitrebenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS), and 1,7-diaminoheptane (DAH) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis MO, USA). Guanosine 5 0 -diphosphate, 3 0 -diphosphate (ppGpp) was obtained from Trilink BioTechnologies (San Diego, CA).…”

“…In this paper, inhibitory effect of twelve OPEs with aromatic, alkyl or chlorinated alkyl substituents on the activity of lysine decarboxylase (LDC) was assessed quantitatively with an economic and label-free fluorescence sensor and cell assay. The sensor comprises a macrocyclic host (cucurbit [7]uril) and a fluorescent dye (acridine orange) reporter. The twelve OPEs were found to vary in their capacity to inhibit LDC activity.…”

Evaluating the blank contamination and recovery of sample pretreatment procedures for analyzing organophosphorus flame retardants in waters

“…As a result, OPEs are now widely present in indoor and outdoor environments, such as in surface water (Wang et al, 2011;Bacaloni et al, 2008), ground water (Regnery et al, 2011), and wastewater (Rodil et al, 2005;Marklund et al, 2005), as well as in airborne particles (Möller et al, 2011(Möller et al, , 2012, indoor dust (Marklund et al, 2003;Van den Eede et al, 2012;Yang et al, 2014) and soils (Fries and Mihajlovic, 2011). Moreover, OPEs in the environment can enter the bodies of animals and humans via skin (Möller et al, 2012), the respiratory system, and diet. Currently, OPEs have already been detected in marine and fresh water biota (Sundkvist et al, 2010;Kim et al, 2011), human milk (Sundkvist et al, 2010), and human plasma (Shah et al, 2006), and their metabolites were also found in human urine (Reemtsma et al, 2011).…”

“…The main toxic effects included eye and skin irritation, carcinogenicity, dermatitis, and neurotoxicity (Möller et al, 2012;Van den Eede et al, 2012). For example, tricresyl phosphate (TCrP) shows delayed neurotoxicity (Craig and Barth, 1999), and chlorinated OPEs are considered to be potentially carcinogenic (Ni et al, 2007).…”