Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in the Sediments of the Great Lakes. 3. Lakes Ontario and Erie

Abstract

Sediment cores were taken in 2002 in Lakes Ontario and Erie at four locations. A total of 48 sediment samples were characterized, dated using 210Pb, and analyzed for 10 congeners of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) including BDE209 as well as 39 congeners of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The surficial concentrations of nine tri- through hepta-BDE congeners (sigma9PBDE) are 4.85 and 6.33 ng g(-1), at sampling sites ON40 and ON30 in Lake Ontario, and 1.83 and 1.95 ng g(-1) at ER37 and ER09 in Lake Erie, respectively, based on dry sediment weight. The surficial BDE209 concentrations are 242 and 211 ng g(-1) at ON40 and ON30 and 50 and 55 ng g(-1) at ER37 and ER09. The sigma(9-) PBDEs fluxes to the sediment around 2002 are 147 and 195 pg cm(-2) year(-1) at ON40 and ON30 and 136 and 314 pg cm(-2) year(-1) at ER37 and ER09, respectively. The fluxes of BDE209 are 6.5 and 7.3 ng cm(-2) year(-1) at ON30 and ON40 and 3.7 and 8.9 ng cm(-2) year(-1) at ER37 and ER09, respectively. Dramatic increases in PBDE concentrations and fluxes upward toward the sediment surface and the present time are evident at both locations in Lake Ontario, while PCBs concentrations peak in the middle of sediment cores around the dated time of 1970s and 1960s. For both locations of Lake Erie, the increasing trends of both PBDEs and PCBs from the bottom to the surficial segments were distorted by sediment mixing. BDE209 is the most abundant congener among PBDEs in the sediments, constituting about 96 and 91% of the total PBDEs on mass basis in Lakes Ontario and Erie, respectively.

PBDEs, PCBs and PCDD/Fs in the sediments from seven major river basins in China: Occurrence, congener profile and spatial tendency

“…Extremely high values were observed in the sites S12 (61,500 ng g −1 ) in Yangtze River Delta, S22 (559 ng g −1 ) and S23 (141 ng g −1 ) in Pearl River Basin. These results were higher than those observed in Lake Maggiore in Europe (0.06-27 ng g −1 dw, Vives et al, 2007) and Great Lake area (Song et al, 2005a(Song et al, , 2005b(Song et al, , 2004. PBDE levels were relatively higher than the other two contaminants in Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Basin and Haihe River Basin, where the developed industries and commerce were more aggregated.…”

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in sediments of the coastal East China Sea: Occurrence, distribution and mass inventory

“…P PBDE 7 concentrations were lower than those in the Pearl River and Macao Coast (Mai et al, 2005), compared with the South China Sea (Mai et al, 2005) and Xiamen offshore areas , and higher than the Bohai Sea (Pan et al, 2010), Yangtze River Delta (Chen et al, 2006) and Southwest Taiwan (Jiang et al, 2011). Compared with other area in the world, BDE-209 levels in sediments of the coastal ECS were significantly lower than those detected in the coastal waters of Korea (Moon et al, 2007b), Busan bay, Ulsan bay, Jinhae bay (Moon et al, 2007a), the Great Lakes (except Superior Lake) in USA (Song et al, 2005a(Song et al, , 2005b, while slightly higher than Superior Lake (Song et al, 2004). P PBDE 7 concentrations were higher than those reported in the coastal waters of Korea (Moon et al, 2007b), comparable to Busan bay, Ulsan bay, Jinhae bay (Moon et al, 2007a) and the Great Lakes in USA (Song et al, 2004(Song et al, , 2005a(Song et al, , 2005b.…”

“…In our previous studies, the poor correlations between TOC and OCPs in sediments of the coastal ECS were also found because of their heterogeneous sources and sedimentary process (Hu et al, 2011). The distribution of PBDEs Song et al, 2005a) a The sum of all targeted PBDE congeners except BDE-209.…”

Aerobic biotransformation of decabromodiphenyl ether (PBDE-209) by Pseudomonas aeruginosa

“…Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are a class of synthetic organic compounds which have been widely used in a variety of industrial products including flame retardants, plastics, electronic appliances, furniture and vehicles (Song et al, 2005;Leung et al, 2007). There are 209 congeners based on the number and position of bromine atoms.…”

“…As a result of massive industrial use, PBDEs have been detected in a wide variety of environmental media such as air (Luo et al, 2009), soil (Leung et al, 2007), sediment and sewage sludge (Song et al, 2005) as well as biological samples including birds (Luo et al, 2009), fish (Hites et al, 2004), human blood serum and breast milk (Miller et al, 2009). PBDEs are found even in the Arctic biosphere (Rotander et al, 2012).…”