Monitoring of Airborne Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in the Urban Area by Means of Road Dust and Camphor Tree Barks

Urban road dust and camphor tree bark samples were collected in June of 2009 from Suzhou, Wuxi and Nantong in the Yangtze River Delta, China. Eight polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners (BDE-28, 47, 100, 99,154, 153, 183 and 209) were measured to determine the levels and compositional profiles in the samples. The concentrations of Sigma 7PBDEs and BDE-209 ranged from N.D to 35.5 mu g/kg and 4.01 to 1439 mu g/kg dry weight (dw) in the road dust samples, 5.1 to 799 mu g/kg and 121 to 3243 mu g/kg lipid weight (lw) in the tree bark samples, respectively. BDE-209 was the predominant congener (contributing to 64.1-99.8% of Sigma 8PBDEs) in all samples. Apart from fugitive emissions from PBDE-containing products, combustion processes and vehicles emissions could also contribute BDE-209 to the road dust and tree bark samples. On average, the PBDEs contamination degree in three cities follow the order of Nantong > Suzhou > Wuxi. Road dust and tree bark proved to be an effective accumulator to reflect the degree of atmospheric PBDEs pollutants in the urban environment.