Fluorescent whitening agents in Baiyangdian Lake in North China: Analysis, occurrence, distribution and ecological risk assessment

Qi Wu; Bowen He; Ruiyao Guo; Jiansheng Cui; Shuwen Yan; Daxi Liu; Bo Yao

doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2021.118235

Fluorescent whitening agents in Baiyangdian Lake in North China: Analysis, occurrence, distribution and ecological risk assessment

Environ Pollut. 2021 Dec 15:291:118235. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2021.118235. Epub 2021 Sep 25.

Authors

Qi Wu¹, Bowen He², Ruiyao Guo², Jiansheng Cui², Shuwen Yan³, Daxi Liu², Bo Yao⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Science and Technology, Shijiazhuang, 050018, China; School of Rare Earths, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China; Ganjiang Innovation of Academy, Chinese Academy of Science, Ganzhou, 341000, China.
² School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Science and Technology, Shijiazhuang, 050018, China.
³ Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China.
⁴ School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Science and Technology, Shijiazhuang, 050018, China; Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China. Electronic address: byao13@fudan.edu.cn.

PMID: 34582923
DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2021.118235

Abstract

Fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs) are very important chemical additives that are widely applied in the industrial production field. The history of global FWA production and use spans more than 60 years, but the environmental fate of FWAs has been less reported in the public literature and most studies predate 2000; in addition, the studied FWAs were still limited to FWA71 and FWA351. In this study, the occurrence and distribution of 9 commonly used FWAs in a lake in North China were reported for the first time. We found that 6 target FWAs were prevalent in the lake, and the concentration levels were usually at the ng L^-1 level. Decreasing FWA levels with increasing distance from the estuary area were observed in summer. FWA135, FWA185, and FWA367, the most detected 3 FWAs, with the ecological risk at high levels, and ΣRQ >10 were obtained from all the investigated samples, suggesting that all the sampling sites could be considered with certain ecological risk for aquatic life. As a category of heavily and widely used dyes, FWAs in environmental media have been ignored for a long time. Substantial additional research needs to be conducted to determine the environmental behavior and ecological toxicology of FWAs.

Keywords: Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry; Online solid phase extraction; Optical brighteners; Risk quotients.

MeSH terms

Bleaching Agents* / analysis
China
Environmental Monitoring
Fluorescent Dyes / analysis
Lakes
Risk Assessment
Water Pollutants, Chemical* / analysis

Substances

Bleaching Agents
Fluorescent Dyes
Water Pollutants, Chemical