Sources of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in sediments of the East China 
marginal seas: Role of unintentionally-produced PCBs

Yu, Huimin; Lin, Tian; Hu, Limin; Lammel, Gerhard; Zhao, Shizhen; Sun, Xueshi; Wu, Xiao; Guo, Zhigang

doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2023.122707

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Sources of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in sediments of the East China marginal seas: Role of unintentionally-produced PCBs

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons101095

Lammel, Gerhard
Multiphase Chemistry, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Yu, H., Lin, T., Hu, L., Lammel, G., Zhao, S., Sun, X., et al. (2023). Sources of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in sediments of the East China marginal seas: Role of unintentionally-produced PCBs. Environmental Pollution, 338: 122707. doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2023.122707.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000D-EE78-1

Abstract

The production and use of intentionally-produced polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in China have a short history compared with countries of North America and Europe, where technical PCB mixtures were manufactured in large amounts for decades before being banned. Unintentionally-produced PCB emissions increased dramatically in China, leading to unique profiles of PCB burdens. This study first time evaluated 208 individual PCB congeners at 94 sites from surface sediments of the East China Marginal Seas (ECMSs) and explored their sources. Non-technical PCBs transported from atmospheric transport and river discharge played a dominant role in most areas of the ECMSs, while historical residuals of technical PCBs occupied the fine-grained sediments in muddy areas of the central Yellow Sea (YS), regarding to the low sedimentation rate in the central YS. Furthermore, emissions from Taizhou located on the coast of the East China Sea (ECS), which is an important electronic waste dismantling site in East China, contributed additional technical PCBs to the inner shelf of the ECS. Our results indicate that non-technical PCBs have become the dominant PCB species in the ECMSs, and emphasize the synergistic effects of large riverine input, long-range atmospheric transport, and muddy shelf deposition on PCB source and sink of in marginal seas.