Environmental Science and Technology 45(24)

Overview of new articles on POPs in a new issue of the Environmental Science & Technology journal.

Selected articles

Marcia L. Hardy, Niomi L. Krystowczyk, Steve W. LeVan, and David W. Clary

La Guardia et al. commented on the detection of three nonabromochlorodiphenyl ethers (NBCDEs) in air and soil samples from Guangzhou China and at an e-waste recycling area, and speculated in this and a prior publication that these compounds were impurities in Albemarle Corporation's commercial decabromodiphenyl ether (DecaBDE) product. Albemarle would like to set the record straight.

Jill E. Schrlau, Linda Geiser, Kimberly J. Hageman, Dixon H. Landers, and Staci Massey Simonich

A wide range of semivolatile organic compounds (SOCs), including pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), were measured in lichen, conifer needles, snowpack and XAD-based passive air sampling devices (PASDs) collected from 19 different U.S. national parks in order to compare the magnitude and mechanism of SOC accumulation in the different passive sampling media.

Magnus Bergknut, Karin Wiberg, and Jonatan Klaminder

Study of the dispersion of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) throughout the environment is necessitated by their toxicological properties and propensity to accumulate in biota. In this study, we use data from the analysis of three 210Pb dated soil profiles collected along a 30-m hydrological gradient to demonstrate postdepositional mobility of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Stephan A. van der Heijden and Michiel T. O. Jonker

The variation among bioconcentration factors (BCFs) available in the literature is commonly ascribed to experimental parameters and metabolic capacity. Though bioconcentration is generally considered to be governed by partitioning processes and therefore to depend on the composition of the partition phases, the effect of lipid composition on BCFs measured for hydrophobic organic chemicals has largely escaped attention.

SarahE. Hale, Kelly Hanley, Johannes Lehmann, AndrewR. Zimmerman, and Gerard Cornelissen

In this study, the suitability of biochar and activated carbon (AC) for contaminated soil remediation is investigated by determining the sorption of pyrene to both materials in the presence and absence of soil and before as well as after aging.

Amy Dindal, Elizabeth Thompson, Erich Strozier, and Stephen Billets

There have been numerous attempts to correlate results obtained by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to alternative techniques such as immunoassays and bioassays for the analysis of dioxins in environmental samples. In spite of these efforts, uncertainties about the performance of these methods remain. Following a series of performance studies of various dioxin assays, an in-depth evaluation of sample extracts from the Procept Rapid Dioxin Assay was conducted to provide users with a clearer understanding of the differences in the assay's results compared to traditional mass spectrometry.

Xianming Zhang, Masahiro Tsurukawa, Takeshi Nakano, Ying D. Lei, and Frank Wania

Current theory of the uptake of semivolatile organic compounds in passive air samplers (PAS) assumes uniform chemical distribution and no kinetic resistance within the passive sampling media (PSM) such as polystyrene-divinylbenzene resin (XAD) and polyurethane foam (PUF). However, these assumptions have not been tested experimentally and are challenged by some recently reported observations. To test the assumptions, we performed kinetic uptake experiments indoors using cylindrical PSM that had been concentrically segmented into three layers.

Barbara Beckingham and Upal Ghosh

Remediation of contaminated sediments remains a technological challenge because traditional approaches do not always achieve risk reduction goals for human health and ecosystem protection and can even be destructive for natural resources. Recent work has shown that uptake of persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the food web is strongly influenced by the nature of contaminant binding, especially to black carbon surfaces in sediments. We demonstrate for the first time in a contaminated river that application of activated carbon to sediments in the field reduces biouptake of PCBs in benthic organisms.

Liqin Yu, James C. W. Lam, Yongyong Guo, Rudolf S. S. Wu, Paul K. S. Lam, and Bingsheng Zhou

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) have the potential to disrupt the thyroid endocrine system. The objective of the present study was to characterize the disrupting effects of long-term exposure on the thyroid endocrine system in adult fish and their progeny following parental exposure to PBDEs.

Yongquan Lai, Minghua Lu, Xiang Gao, Hanzhi Wu, and Zongwei Cai

This study investigated the formation of DNA adducts of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and the possible mechanisms. DNA adduction was conducted by in vitro reaction of deoxyguanosine (dG) and DNA with PBDE-quinone (PBDE-Q) metabolites, and DNA adducts were characterized by using electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry.

13.12.2011