Journal
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Volume 734, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139380
Keywords
Organophosphate esters; Spatial distribution; Source identification; Yangtze River; Risk assessment
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51908274]
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2018M640475]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China
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Organophosphate esters (OPEs) are extensively used as flame retardants and plasticizers in China; however, their potential carcinogenicity causes great concern. To date, their environmental distribution in water samples from the lower Yangtze River Basin still remains uncharacterized. This study systematically investigated the occurrence and spatial distribution of 13 OPEs, as well as their associated potential risks, in water samples from the lower Yangtze River and its 88 major inflowing rivers. The total OPE (Sigma OPEs) concentrations ranged from 55.6 to 5071 ng/L, with a median of 144 ng/L. Among them, halogenated OPEs were the dominant group with an average of 61.6%, and tris(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (12.6450 ng/L, median: 53.38 ng/L) and tris(2-choroethyl) phosphate (11.01202 ng/L, median: 36.4 ng/L) were the most abundant OPEs. Significantly different concentrations were found with spatial variations (p < 0.01), and were higher in southern cities than in northern cities of the lower Yangtze River Basin. Principal component analysis with multiple linear regression and Spearman correlations showed that the main sources were likely emission of vehicular and marine traffic. Ecological risk analysis showed that the risk quotient (RQ) values of samples remained below 1, but the percentage of 0.1 < RQ <= 1 was 26.9%, indicating a medium risk of OPEs in water samples. Moreover, ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate predominantly contributed to the ecological risk, accounting for >89.2% of the total ecological risk of Sigma OPEs. However, the total non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks of Sigma OPEs were negligible at the detected concentrations, even in a high exposure scenario. The risks from major inflowing rivers of the lower Yangtze River were almost one order of magnitude higher than those of the mainstream lower Yangtze River.
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