Occurrence of Halogenated Pollutants in Domestic and Occupational Indoor Dust

Giulia Simonetti, Patrizia Di Filippo, Carmela Riccardi, Donatella Pomata, Elisa Sonego and Francesca Buiarelli
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Giulia Simonetti: Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Patrizia Di Filippo: Dipartimento innovazioni tecnologiche e sicurezza degli impianti, prodotti e insediamenti antropici, Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contri gli Infortuni sul Lavoro (INAIL), 00143 Rome, Italy
Carmela Riccardi: Dipartimento innovazioni tecnologiche e sicurezza degli impianti, prodotti e insediamenti antropici, Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contri gli Infortuni sul Lavoro (INAIL), 00143 Rome, Italy
Donatella Pomata: Dipartimento innovazioni tecnologiche e sicurezza degli impianti, prodotti e insediamenti antropici, Istituto Nazionale per l’Assicurazione contri gli Infortuni sul Lavoro (INAIL), 00143 Rome, Italy
Elisa Sonego: Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Francesca Buiarelli: Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: The occurrence of halogenated organic pollutants in indoor dust can be high due to the presence of textile, electronic devices, furniture, and building materials treated with these chemicals. In this explorative study, we focused on emerging organic pollutants, such as novel brominated flame retardants (nBFRs) and some perfluoroalkyl substances, together with legacy polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs) in settled dust collected in houses and workplaces such as one office and two electrotechnical and mechanical workshops. The total contribution of the investigated pollutants was lower in house and in office dusts except for few nBFRs (such as bis (2-ethylhexyl)-3,4,5,6-tetrabromo-phthalate at a concentration of 464.5 ng/g in a house and hexachlorocyclopentadienyldibromocyclooctane at 40.4 ng/g in the office), whereas in electrotechnical and mechanical workshops a high incidence of PCBs, BDEs, and nBFRs occurred (for example, BDE 209 at a concentration of 2368.0 ng/g and tetrabromobisphenol A at 32,320.1 ng/g in electrotechnical and mechanical workshops). Estimated daily intakes were also calculated, showing that domestic and occupational environments can lead to a similar contribution in terms of human exposure. The higher exposure contribution was associated to nBFRs, whose EDIs were in the range of 3968.2–555,694.2 pg/kg bw/day. To provide a complete view about the indoor contamination, in this investigation, we also included polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their oxygenated and nitrated derivatives. Definitely, dust collection represents a simple, fast, and cost-effective sampling and dust contamination level can be a useful indicator of environment healthiness. Besides, the presented method can be a smart tool to provide a time and money saving technique to characterize 99 pollutants thanks to a single sample treatment.

Keywords: multiclass analysis; halogenated flame retardants; emerging pollutants; indoor settled dust; environmental exposures and health; occupational health; preventive measure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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