Changes of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and polychlorinated biphenyls in surface soils from urban agglomeration of the Yangtze River Delta, in China between 2003 and 2012

Surface soil samples were collected from urban agglomeration of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), China in 2003 and 2012, respectively. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were analyzed to determine if there were any changes in their levels and compositional profiles between the two sampling years. The concentrations of Σ8PBDEs ranged from 0.553 to 13.0 μg kg−1(with the mean of 3.31 μg kg−1) in the 2003 samples and from 1.01 to 43.2 μg/kg (with the mean of 10.0 μg kg−1) in the 2012 samples. The concentrations of Σ32PCBs ranged from 0.301 to 3.29 μg kg−1(with the mean of 1.01 μg kg−1) in the 2003 samples and from 0.205 to 3.96 μg/kg (with the mean of 0.991 μg kg−1) in the 2012 samples. The comparisons between the 2012 and 2003 data showed that PBDEs concentrations increased over the years, but PCB concentrations did not change much. BDE-209 was the major BDE congener in both the 2003 and 2012 samples, indicating that the dominant PBDE mixture production and usage in the YRD had been the commercial deca-BDE mixture. Investigation of the PBDE congener profiles indicated that there had been new input of octa-BDEs in this region in recent years. Little change was found for the pattern of PCBs congener profiles between 2 years’ samples. As such, spatial distributions of PBDEs or PCBs in surface soil samples reflected a gradient (from high to low) from the central cities out to rural areas in both the 2003 and 2012 data. In addition, high concentrations of PBDEs were observed in the industrial and residential areas, whereas high concentrations of PCBs were only observed in the industrial areas.