Wet deposition of brominated flame retardants to the Great Lakes basin - Status and trends

Investor logo

Warning

This publication doesn't include Faculty of Arts. It includes Faculty of Science. Official publication website can be found on muni.cz.
Authors

ROBSON M. MELYMUK Lisa Emily BRADLEY L. TREEN B. BACKUS S.

Year of publication 2013
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Environmental Pollution
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2013.07.018
Field Air pollution and control
Keywords Brominated flame retardants; Wet deposition; Great Lakes; Temporal trends; Spatial trends
Description This study examined the temporal and spatial trends in wet deposition of 19 legacy and emerging brominated flame retardants (14 polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), 1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)ethane (BTBPE), decabromodiphenylethane (DBDPE), hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) and pentabromoethylbenzene (PBEB)) at 9 sites in the Canadian Great Lakes between 2004 and 2010. Concentrations of BDE-209 in wet deposition declined significantly. This indicates that the voluntary actions taken to phase out the use of BDE 209 in North America are having an immediate effect on its environment concentrations. The analysis also revealed the presence of 22 short-term high concentration events that dominated overall wet deposition loadings of current-use BFRs to the lakes. For instance, one sample in 2007 was responsible for 37% of the total loadings of HBCD to Lake Huron over the entire six-year sampling period. This questions the current paradigm of how we believe such pollutants enter the environment.
Related projects:

You are running an old browser version. We recommend updating your browser to its latest version.