Pollution Characteristics And Health Risk Assessment Of PAEs And OPEs In Indoor And Outdoor Dusts

Phthalate esters（PAEs）are widely used as plastic additives,and organophosphate esters（OPEs）are widely used as plastic additives and flame retardants.At present,PAEs and OPEs have been detected in various environmental media,such as atmosphere,groundwater,surface water,sediments,dusts and organisms.Both of them are physically added to the polymeric materials used in indoor and outdoor environments,and thereby facilitating their entrance to environments easily during their usage and disposal.Moreover,some PAEs and OPEs have serious toxicity to organism.Dust is the main environmental medium for human ingestion of these two pollutants in living environments,and it is also a good indicator to reflect indoor pollution levels.Therefore,it is of great significance to study PAEs and OPEs in dusts.In the present paper,PAEs and OPEs in indoor and outdoor dusts collected from29 provincial administrative regions of 7 regions in China were studied firstly.Spatial distribution differences and contamination characteristics of PAEs and OPEs were analyzed.Principal component analysis（PCA）and positive matrix factorization（PMF）were performed to analyze the possible sources of PAEs and OPEs in indoor and outdoor dusts.The health risk of PAEs and OPEs exposure for children and adults were also investigated.On the basis,the pollution characteristics of PAEs and OPEs in dusts of 12 kinds of microenvironments（including 4 outdoor environments and 8 indoor environments）from Beijing were further studied to contrast the pollution status of PAEs and OPEs in different microenvironments.Based on the life characteristics of different population groups,the health risks of 5 types of occupational groups and different gender and age groups were evaluated.The main conclusions were obtained as follows:（1）High detection rates of 8 PAEs and 12 OPEs were found in indoor and outdoor dusts of seven geographical regions in China.Analyzed from different environment types,PAEs concentrations in indoor dusts from residences were higher than that from dormitories.OPEs concentrations in indoor dusts were higher than that in outdoor dusts.Analyzed from the spatial distribution,relatively high concentrations ofΣ₈PAEs andΣ₁₂OPES in indoor and outdoor dusts were found in Northeast China,East China and Northwest China.According to different administrative regions,Σ₈PAEs andΣ₁₂OPEs both descended in the order of provincial capital cities>non-provincial cities>rural areas.Di（2-ethylhexyl）phthalate（DEHP）,Di-n-butyl phthalate（DBP）and Disobutyl phthalate（DIBP）were the predominant compounds in indoor and outdoor dusts.The concentrations of various OPEs were descended in the order of Cl-OPEs>Aryl-OPEs>Alkyl-OPEs,and Tris（1-chloro-2-propyl）phosphate（TCPP）and Tri（2-chloroethyl）phosphate（TCEP）were the dominant OPEs monomers.（2）Σ₇PAEs andΣ₁₂OPEs levels observed in dusts of indoor microenvironments（taxi,private car,residence,office,dormitory,printing shop,shopping mall and furniture shop）were higher than that in dusts of outdoor microenvironments（road dust,green belt,park and residential area）.Among various indoor microenvironments,the highestΣ₇PAEs andΣ₁₂OPEs concentration was detected in taxis（mean:1250.59μg/g and 12461.89 ng/g）,while among various outdoor microenvironments,the highest concentration ofΣ₇PAEs was detected in road dusts（5.41μg/g）,the highest concentration ofΣ₁₂OPEs was detected in the dust of residential areas（451.36 ng/g）.The different patterns of PAEs and OPEs contamination profiles in indoor and outdoor dusts collected from different microenvironments suggested the use modes of PAEs and OPEs were different.（3）PCA and PMF were performed to conduct the possible sources of PAEs in indoor dusts of residence and dormitory,and theΣ₈PAEs concentration predicted by the two models presented good correlations.PAEs in indoor dusts main source from plasticizers,furniture and building materials,cosmetics and personal care products.Due to the different dwelling characteristics of residence and dormitory,plasticizer and furniture and building materials contributed more to the source of PAEs in dusts of residences,while cosmetics and personal care products contributed more to the source of PAEs in dusts of dormitories.5 principal components were extracted to explain the source of OPEs in outdoor dusts by PCA and PMF models,which accounting for 72.34%and 98.78%of the total variance.Traffic sources were the main source of OPEs in outdoor dusts,accounting for 30.87%and 33.23%,respectively.However,the sources of OPEs in indoor dusts were relatively complex,mainly come from furniture and building materials,textiles,PVC materials,food packaging,natural rubbers,coatings,polyurethane foam and floor wax.Slight differences were observed between the source analysis results of OPEs in indoor dusts obtained by the two models.However,compared with PCA model,the results conducted by PMF model had more practical significance.（4）Ingestion was the main exposure route for human exposure to PAEs and OPEs in dusts.PAEs and OPEs in indoor dusts of residences collected from China,and OPEs of indoor and outdoor dusts in Beijing could not cause non-carcinogenic risk and carcinogenic risk to residents.However,under high exposure scenarios,PAEs of indoor dusts in Beijing could pose carcinogenic risk to residents.For people of different ages,children face higher non-cancer risk than adults,and the larger the age increased,the lower the non-cancer risk faced.For different gender groups,for children ages 1 to 6,as well as adults,females faced greater non-carcinogenic risk than males.While for children ages 6 to18,males faced greater non-carcinogenic risk than females.And adult males faced slightly greater carcinogenic risk than adult females.Under the mean and high exposure scenarios,OPEs in major living environments（including residence and working environments）can not pose carcinogenic risk to taxi drivers,print shop workers,office workers,road workers,home-office workers/the jobless.However,under high exposure scenarios,DEHP could pose carcinogenic risk to the 5 types of occupational groups.Even under mean exposure scenarios,DEHP can also pose carcinogenic risks to taxi drivers.Therefore,it is necessary to attach great importance to the health risks of special occupations exposure to PAEs in dusts.