Concentrations And Risk Assessment Of DEHP In Vegetables Around Plastic Industrial Area

Di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), a phthalate ester, is widely used as a plasticizer in the manufacture of plastics. Since the phthalate plasticizers are not chemically bound to PVC, DEHP can leach, migrate or evaporate into indoor air and atmosphere, foodstuff, or other materials. High doses of DEHP can cause testicular and liver damage, and also may cause fetal malformations or even death, furthermore, some liver cancers might be induced by DEHP.DEHP has been classified as a priority pollutant for control by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).Vegetables are an important part of human diet, but previous studies showed that, DEHP can impact vegetable seedling growth, yield and quality of porosity.In this paper, concentrations of DEHP around plastic industrial areas were investigated. The concentrations and distribution of DEHP in air, agriculture soil and plants (including leafy vegetables, melon vegetables,and root vegetables) were determined. The differences in uptaking DEHP between the various vegetations were discussed to determine heavy pollution vegetable specieses. According to the soil sampling points and the level of atmospheric concentrations of DEHP, to explore the principal pathway about plant DEHP uptaking, vegetables were cultivated around plastic industrial area to test DEHP content for risk assessment. The main conclusions are shown as follows.(1)A determination method of DEHP in vegetables based on GC/MS by optimizing the extraction method and chromatographic parameters were established, a working curve with a linear range from 0.0001 to 1.0mg/mL, a detection limit (3S/N) of 2.65×10-3mg/kg, these results can be used for the quantitative analysis of DEHP in vegetables.(2)Around plastic industrial area of Yu Yao, Zhejiang Province, China, vegetables have generally been polluted by DEHP. Concentrations of DEHP in vegetables were 1.2-37.8mg/kg (fresh weight), and8.3-262.7 mg/kg (dry weight). Among the plants, Cabbage, Benincasa hispida, eggplant, and cowpeas have strong accumulation ability of DEHP, while tomato, peppers, corn, and loofah have weaker accumulation ability capacity.(3)Around plastic industrial area of Xiao Shan, Zhejiang Province, China, concentrations of DEHP in agriculture soil were from 0.51to2.42 mg/kg,the average concentration is 1.28 mg/kg. We observed that the highest accumulation vegetation plant was leafy vegetables, followed by melon and root vegetables among all determination vegetable species. Atmosphere deposition is the principal pathway for the accumulation of DEHP. In this investigation, we found that the ability of the plant accumulating DEHP was mainly influenced by the lipid content of the plant.(4)We studied the diffusion and accumulation of DEHP in cultivated vegetable plants from a plastic production factory, Zhejiang Province, China. We found that a barrier could hinder the diffusion of DEHP.The atmospheric DEHP concentration was highest in the downwind direction. The vegetable plants accumulated the highest DEHP content in the downwind direction and the lowest quantities in the upwind direction. DEHP concentration of more than 100 mg kg-1 in a dried sample of a vegetable may reach the limit level according to the daily intake limit of 20μg kg-1 body weight day-1 recommended by the US EPA. The limit air DEHP concentration for food safety of vegetable cultivation is 27.84,34.56,39.89 and 77.86μg m-3for field mustard, bok choy, eggplant and cowpea respectively.