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Environmental problems - Chemical approaches
RESEARCH FRONT (Open Access)

Potential exposure of perfluorinated compounds to Chinese in Shenyang and Yangtze River Delta areas

Guo-Hui Lu A B , Yong-Liang Yang A E , Sachi Taniyasu B , Leo W. Y. Yeung B C , Jing Pan A , Bingsheng Zhou D , Paul K. S. Lam C and Nobuyoshi Yamashita B E
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A National Research Center for Geoanalysis (NRCGA), 26 Bai Wan Zhuang Avenue, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100037, People’s Republic of China.

B National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 16-1 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8569, Japan.

C Centre for Coastal Pollution and Conservation, Department of Biology and Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China.

D State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430072, People’s Republic of China.

E Corresponding authors. Email: ylyang2003@yahoo.com.cn; nob.yamashita@aist.go.jp

Environmental Chemistry 8(4) 407-418 https://doi.org/10.1071/EN10139
Submitted: 16 February 2011  Accepted: 4 April 2011   Published: 19 August 2011

Journal Compilation © CSIRO Publishing 2011 Open Access CC BY-NC-ND

Environmental context. A total of 21 perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) including PFOS were quantified in river waters, sewage, sea waters, shallow ground waters as well as fish and domestic poultry, focussed on the main river basins in Shenyang and the Yangtze River Delta areas, China. The distribution characteristics of PFCs in the aquatic environment and evaluation of the potential risk for human health via the diet of fish was discussed. Comprehensive research was carried out using the world leading knowledge about PFOS-related chemicals in AIST, Japan to enable reliable evaluation of PFOS risk in Chinese environments, supported by ISO25101.

Abstract. A total of 21 perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) were quantified in water and biota samples collected from Shenyang in North-east China and the Yangtze River Delta area in East China. The human health risk owing to intake of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) via fish and domestic poultry dietary was evaluated. The total PFC concentration (∑PFC) in water samples from the rivers in Shenyang averaged 5.32 ng L–1, with PFOS and PFOA as the predominant compounds. The urban sewage could be the source of PFOS and perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) in the surface waters. The total PFCs in water samples from the Yangtze River Delta area ranged from 42.4 to 170 ng L–1. The highest concentrations of most PFCs were observed in waters from the Shanghai section of the Yangtze River. In the biota samples, PFOS and PFUnDA (perfluoroundecanoic acid) were the most abundant. The acceptable daily intake (ADI) and hazard ratio (HR) values for PFOS and PFOA intake through the diet of fish and poultry in the studied areas were calculated, and showed that the HR values for PFOS and PFOA are all less than 1.0 for both the areas.

Additional keywords: biota, groundwater, river water, seawater.


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