The Pollution Characteristics Of Polybrominated Diphenyl And Phthalate Esters In Indoor Dust

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are among the most used brominated flame retardants (BFRs) due to the outstanding flame-retardant properties and are used in a wide range of applications, such as plastics, textiles construction and electronics. Phthalate Esters (PAEs) are a large group of artificial chemical compounds that are widely used in building materials, furnishings, transportation, clothing, and to garbage bags, fluid containers and medical products. PBDEs and PAEs are ubiquitous in different environmental matrixes, such as water, sediments, soil air and dust, and even in the food chain, which have great threat to human health. Taking Hangzhou as a case, this study investigated the concentrations, distributions characteristic of PBDEs and PAEs in indoor dust of homes, offices and dormitories. And the concentrations of PBDEs and PAEs in air conditions and computers were also investigated to study whether air conditions and computers were the sources of PBDEs and PAEs. And futher more, the distributions characteristic of PBDEs and PAEs in dust of dormitories were studied in detail to investigated the factors to influence the distributions of PBDEs and PAEs.The average concentrations of PBDEs in the dust of homes, offices and dormitories were563.06ng/g,221.26ng/g and93.93ng/g, respectively. And the median concentrations were563.06ng/g,221.26ng/g and93.93ng/g, respectively. As for PAEs, the average concentrations in the dust of homes, offices and dormitories were745.81μg/g,531.26μg/g and93.93μg/g, respectively, and the median concentrations were216.37μg/g,612.84μg/g and105.07μg/g, respectively. The level of PAEs in the dusts was three orders of magnitude higher than those of PBDEs. The PBDEs and PAEs contaminations in homes and offices were at the comparative levels, which were much higher than those in dormitories. When compared to the concentrations in other regions and countries, the contaminations of PBDEs and PAEs of indoor dust in Hangzhou were at a relatively low levels.The average concentrations of PBDEs in the dusts of air conditions and computers were990.44ng/g and509.29ng/g. And for PAEs, The average concentrations were224.75μg/g and1301.40μg/g. Obviously, the concentrations of PBDEs and PAEs in the air conditions and computers dusts were much higher than those in the indoor dusts, which may suggested that the release of PBDEs and PAEs from air conditions and computers were the main sources of PBDEs and PAEs in indoor environment.BDE209and DEHP were dominant in all dust samples. This was due to their wide applications and the lower vapor pressures, which push them to distribute in the dust rather than existing as gas.The contaminations of PBDEs in the boy’s dormitories were higher than those in girl’s dormitories, which may dues to boys had more electronic products than girls, and also spent more time on them, such as computers. And generally, boys had bad cleaning habits when compared to girls. However, in contrast with PBDEs, the contaminations of PAEs in the girl’s dormitories were higher than those in boy’s dormitories. This may resulted from the fact that there were much more skincare products and plastic packing in girl’s dormitories than boy’s dormitories.The concentrations of PBDEs and PAEs in dust from south-facing dormitories were slightly higher than those from north-facing dormitories, which may due to the higher temperature caused by sunshine, and PBDEs and PAEs could volatile from the products more easily under higher temperature.The concentrations of PBDEs and PAEs in dusts from dormitories which contained air condition or computer were much higer than those from dormitories which contains no air condition or computer. This could futher more indicated that the use of air conditions and computers could contaminate the indoor environment.