Isopropylated and tert-butylated triarylphosphate isomers in house dust from South China and Midwestern United States

Qingxia Guan; Hongli Tan; Liu Yang; Xiaotu Liu; Heidelore Fiedler; Xue Li; Da Chen

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.055

Isopropylated and tert-butylated triarylphosphate isomers in house dust from South China and Midwestern United States

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Oct 10:686:1113-1119. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.055. Epub 2019 Jun 5.

Authors

Qingxia Guan¹, Hongli Tan¹, Liu Yang¹, Xiaotu Liu¹, Heidelore Fiedler², Xue Li³, Da Chen⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Environment, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution and Health, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
² MTM Research Centre, School of Science and Technology, Örebro University, SE-701 82 Örebro, Sweden.
³ Institute of Mass Spectrometer and Atmospheric Environment, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
⁴ School of Environment, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution and Health, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China. Electronic address: dachen@jnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 31412507
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.055

Abstract

In the present study we determined the concentrations and compositions of a suite of isopropylated and tert-butylated triarylphosphate ester (ITP and TBPP) isomers in house dust from the city of Guangzhou located in South China and the city of Carbondale in Midwestern United States. These two groups of organophosphate esters (OPE) are structurally analogous to triphenyl phosphate (TPHP), but have rarely been investigated for environmental occurrences and human exposure risks. The majority of target ITP and TBPP isomers were 100% detected in house dust from the two locations. Median concentrations of ΣITPs (including all ITP isomers) and ΣTBPPs (including all TBPP isomers) were 63.4 ng/g (range: 16.0-500 ng/g) and 35.4 ng/g (8.1-198 ng/g) in South China house dust, respectively, compared with 476 ng/g (140-1610 ng/g) for ΣITPs and 81.3 ng/g (35.2-800 ng/g) for ΣTBPPs in Midwestern U.S. dust. The profiles of ITP or TBPP isomers were similar between the two locations and were dominated by 2-isopropylphenyl diphenyl phosphate (2IPPDPP) and 4-tert-butylphenyl diphenyl phosphate (4tBPDPP), respectively. Although the levels of ΣITPs and ΣTBPPs were generally one order of magnitude lower than those of TPHP in the same dust samples, the broad occurrences of most of these isomers in house dust from the two locations likely suggest their wide applications in household consumer products. Estimated intakes of ΣITPs and ΣTBPPs via dust ingestion were generally three orders of magnitude lower than the reference dose proposed for TPHP. However, these emerging OPE chemicals merit continuous environmental surveillance, given their possible applications as specific commercial mixtures or as components/impurities in other flame retardant/plasticizer mixtures.

Keywords: Daily intake; House dust; Isopropylated triarylphosphate esters; Organophosphate esters; tert-butylated triarylphosphate esters.