PCBs in Air from an Industrial Zone in a Coastal City-Tianjin, China

The 23 air samples were collected from Tianjin Dongli industrial zone from July 2010 to May 2011 for the analysis of 84 PCB congeners to investigate the gas/particle partitioning. The total PCBs concentration ranged from 71.08 to 567.36 pg m-3 with the mean value as 307.78±137.45 pg m-3 and the seasonal trends were summer >winter >spring >autumn. Gas PCBs accounted for 77.47% of the total PCBs. The fraction of each gas PCB homolog increased with the decreasing chlorine atoms. The contribution of gas PCBs to total PCBs showed a strong seasonal variation with summer (92.44%)> autumn (85.16%) > spring (80.61%) > winter (42.70%). Tri-, tetra-, penta-PCBs and di-PCBs were the predominantly homologs in atmosphere from industrial zone in Tianjin. The natural logarithm of partial pressure of PCBs were well correlated with the inverse absolute environmental temperature (R=0.77). The steep slope of-3764 obtained from Clausius–Clapeyron plot indicated the influence of local PCBs sources.