Levels and characteristics of polychlorinated biphenyls in surface sediments of the Chaobai river, a source of drinking water for Beijing, China
Introduction
Persistent organic pollutants in the environment are of particular concern because of their carcinogenicity. Airborne organic pollutants can enter water, soil, and sediment matrices and bioaccumulate through the food chain, resulting in adverse effects on human and ecosystem health (Volschenk et al., 2019). Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are manmade pollutants banned by the Stockholm Convention (Liu et al., 2016). PCBs (chemical formula C12H(10-n)Cln) are biphenyls substituted by 1–10 chlorine atoms, therefore containing a total of 209 congeners and 10 homologue groups. Among PCBs, the 12 dioxin-like PCB (dl-PCB) congeners have been studied extensively because they elicit toxic effects that are similar to those of dioxins, including immunotoxicity and developmental toxicity (Brankovic et al., 2019). Although the commercial production and application of PCBs were prohibited globally in the late 1970s, they are still present in the environment at notable concentrations (Gao et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2011). The phenomenon can be explained by the unintentional production by industrial thermal processes, as PCBs were listed both in the Annex A and C of the convention. POPs listed in Annex A were the ones previously produced and need to be eliminated, while being listed in Annex C indicated that PCBs can be unintentionally emitted by industrial thermal processes. Our previous studies reported that thermal industries including waste incineration, steelmaking, iron ore sintering, coking and cement kiln can unintentionally produce and emit PCBs to the environment (Ba et al., 2009; Li et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2009; Lv et al., 2011; Nie et al., 2012).The commercial PCBs and unintentionally produced PCBs can enter into the environment, some of which may be emitted to the air, and the other parts may leak into the ground or enter the rivers and coastal areas. (Ba et al., 2009; Li et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2009; Lv et al., 2011; Nie et al., 2012).
Considerable levels of PCBs have been detected in environmental and biological media, including sediments (De Souza et al., 2018; Ehsani and Hayes, 2018; Hanh et al., 2018; Hilton et al., 2018; Walters et al., 2018), water (Howell et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2003), air (Audy et al., 2018; Cetin et al., 2018), and aquatic organisms (Bocio et al., 2007; Cui et al., 2018; Romanic et al., 2018). Rivers and sediments serve as a sink for PCBs, and sediment resuspension can release PCBs and make them bioavailable (Ehsani and Hayes, 2018). As sediment is one of the most important environmental media and source of PCBs, the presence of PCBs in sediments can be representative of the current PCB pollution level in the environment. Studies on PCBs in sediments have been conducted extensively in salt water because of intensive human activities around river estuaries and offshore (Hanh et al., 2018). PCBs in the environment mainly from the PCB-containing products and the unintentional emission from industrial processes. Disassembling PCB-containing equipment is considered a significant source of environmental release of PCBs in China, especially in the southeastern coastal areas, where intensive dismantling of electronic waste has been conducted. (Cui et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2011; Zhao et al., 2019). Unintentional emission from thermal industrial processes is also considered a dominant contributor, and some thermal related industries are located in Beijing and Tianjin areas. However, few studies have been conducted on freshwater river sediments, especially in rivers that supply drinking water to Beijing, which can directly influence the health of residents in Beijing. The sources and current pollution levels of PCBs in source river of drinking water are unclear and require investigation, and the knowledge of PCBs in source of drinking water can provide important information for human health risk assessment.
In the present study, we quantified the concentrations of PCBs in sediments collected from 18 sites along the Chaobai river, a source of drinking water to Beijing and Tianjin, with a focus on the 12 dl-PCB congeners. The possible sources of PCBs in the river were evaluated by the distribution pattern of dl-PCBs using principal component analysis. Our findings provide important information for the cognition on PCB levels and their dominant sources in the representative drinking water source in China.
Section snippets
Materials and methods
We investigated PCB pollution along the Chaobai river, running through the northern and eastern areas of Beijing. In total, dozens of reservoirs have been built on the Chaobai river system, among which the Miyun reservoir is the largest and dominant water supply for Beijing City. The sampling sites were located upstream and downstream of the Miyun reservoir. A total of 18 surface sediment samples were collected from the river in June 2018. Fig. 1a depicts the locations of the sampling points.
PCB concentrations in sediment samples from the Chaobai river
Total concentrations of 12 dl-PCBs in sediments ranged from 2.70 to 177 pg/g dry weight, with a mean value of 24.0 pg/g dry weight (Fig. 1b). Dl-PCB levels varied greatly between sampling sites, and were higher in areas with intensive industrial activity. PCB concentrations were highest in areas with printing factories and construction material production, followed by sampling sites downstream of the reservoir and sites upstream of the reservoir. dl-PCB concentrations also varied by the
Conclusions
We assessed PCB pollution in the Chaobai river, the dominant source of drinking water for Beijing. Total PCB concentrations ranged from 2.70 to 177 pg/g dry weight, relatively lower than those reported for other water basins in China and other countries. The PCB distribution pattern showed PCB concentrations in sediments relating to painting operation such as printing factories and construction material markets. CB118, CB-105, and CB-77 were dominant dl-PCB congeners in the sediments of higher
Acknowledgments
Financial support from the National Project of the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Public-interest Scientific Institution (Y2017PT37). The authors gratefully acknowledge the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program and the Young Talents Program under Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (2018-KF-01).
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2022, Ecotoxicology and Environmental SafetyCitation Excerpt :Generally, the concentrations were higher than those found in adjacent soils along the Lian River (Fig. 2 and Table S4), ranging from 18.7 to 1350 ng g−1. The average concentration (521 ng g−1) was comparable to the Ase River polluted by e-waste in Nigeria (Irerhievwie et al., 2020); higher than those polluted by industrial and urban emission (Table S7), such as the Lerma River in Mexico, the Delaware River in the USA, the River Clyde in the UK, Scarp River in France, the Brisbane River in Australia, and rivers in Shanghai (Brito et al., 2015; Net et al., 2015; Anim et al., 2017; Vane et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2018; Qadeer et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2019), heavily higher than the Chaobai River (drinking water) and Jiulong River (wetland) in China (Zhang et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2020); but lower than the Escravos River in Nigeria and the Hudson River (2500 ng g−1) in the USA (Chitsaz et al., 2020; Iwegbue et al., 2020). Surficial sediments from the Escravos River were exposed to fresh discharges from a crude oil production plant, while sediments from the Hudson River were exposed to historical contamination from capacitor production plants, indicating that the anthropogenic PCB evidence seemed to be sealed in sediments for both emerging (fresh) and traditional (historical) emissions (Butcher and Garvey, 2004; Rodenburg and Ralston, 2017).
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