Organophosphate Diesters in Urban River Sediment from South China: Call for More Research on Their Occurrence and Fate in Field Environment
Chan Liang, Bo Peng, Gaoling Wei, Yanyan Gong, Guoqiang Liu, Lixi Zeng, Liang‐Ying Liu, Eddy Y. Zeng
Abstract
Despite numerous studies on the distributions of organophosphate triesters (tri-OPEs) in various environmental compartments, few have investigated organophosphate diesters (di-OPEs) in natural environments. This study was conducted to examine the co-occurrence of tri- and di-OPEs in urban river sediment. The concentrations (range (median); dry weight) of ∑tri-OPE and ∑di-OPE were 17–4400 (330) and 9.0–1200 (130) ng g–1, respectively. The concentrations of diphenyl phosphate (DPHP), bis-(1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (BCIPP), bis(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate (BEHP), dibutyl phosphate (DBP), and bis-(butoxyethyl) phosphate (BBOEP) were 1.7–520 (45), 3.2–590 (51), 1.7–100 (22), 0.43–9.6 (1.2), and 0.41–4.4 (0.74) ng g–1, respectively. Positive correlations between the levels of di-OPE and tri-OPE compounds (p < 0.05) together with high concentration ratios of DPHP to TPHP (2.0–96; median 17) and BCIPP to TCIPP (1.6–160; median 5.7) suggested that DPHP and BCIPP were mainly from degradation of TPHP and TCIPP. More studies are needed to illustrate the environmental occurrence, behavior, fate, and ecological risk of di-OPEs.