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Modeling the overall persistence and environmental mobility of sulfur-containing polychlorinated organic compounds

  • AREA 6.4 • MONITORING AND FATE OF PERSISTENT CHEMICALS (POPS) • RESEARCH ARTICLE
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Abstract

Background, aim, and scope

Experimental data on partition coefficients and environmental half-lives of sulfur analogs of polychlorinated organic compounds are scarce. Consequently, little is known about their overall persistence and long-range transport potential, which are the most vital measures in the environmental exposure assessment. We performed Multimedia Modeling of environmental fate and transport to complement this paucity of scientific data. The main aim of our study was to investigate whether the sulfur analogs of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, -dibenzofurans, and -diphenylethers are as environmentally persistent and/or mobile as their oxygen counterparts and to propose the environmental exposure-related classification of the examined sulfur compounds.

Materials and methods

Our study included all possible congeners of the sulfur analogs generated in a combinatorial approach. We predicted (1) lacking data on partition coefficients (log K OW, log K OA and log K AW) for oxygen- and sulfur analogs using Quantitative Structure–Property Relationship (QSPR) modeling and (2) their half-lives in air, water, and soil using US EPA tool ‘The PBT Profiler, v. 1.203 2006’. Subsequently, we introduced these results into multimedia mass balance model ‘The OECD POV and LRTP Screening Tool, v. 2.2’.

Results

Our study revealed that log K OW and log K OA are increasing by constant values of 0.60 and 1.07, respectively, and the values of log K AW are decreasing by 0.90, whenever one oxygen atom in the carbon skeleton is replaced by sulfur. The persistence ranking performed by the PBT Profiler showed that PCDDs, PCDFs, PCDEs, and their sulfur analogs belong to one half-life class.

Discussion

The Multimedia Modeling by the means of ‘The OECD POV and LRTP Screening Tool, v. 2.2’ suggested that the long-range transport potential depends on the presence/absence of oxygen/sulfur atoms in particular molecules, their substitution pattern and the parent carbon skeleton. Sulfur analogs are generally less mobile than their oxygen analogs, but have similar overall persistence and much higher bioaccumulation potential. Thus, according to the classification of chemicals proposed by Klasmeier et al. (Environ Sci Technol 40:53–60, 2006), some of them show POP-like POV and LRTP characteristics while the rest shows POP-like POV characteristics.

Conclusions

The sulfur analogs of PCDDs, PCDFs, or PCDEs bring environmental mobility comparable with the risk related to the oxygen ones; they belong to the pollutants of ‘highest’ or ‘intermediate’ priority.

Recommendations and perspectives

Further studies that would verify the necessity to include the studied sulfur molecules in the international lists of high-priority environmental pollutants are recommended.

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Acknowledgment

T.P. thanks the Foundation for Polish Science for granting him a fellowship and a research grant in the frame of the HOMING Program. M.H. is a 2008 Glenn T. Seaborg Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This research was supported in part (to M. H.) by the U. S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Environmental Chemometrics, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Gdańsk, Sobieskiego 18/19, 80-952, Gdańsk, Poland

    Tomasz Puzyn

  2. Faculty of Chemistry, University of Gdańsk, Sobieskiego 18/19, 80-952, Gdańsk, Poland

    Aleksandra Mostrąg

  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Computational Research Division, One Cyclotron Road, Mail stop 50F-1650, Berkeley, CA, 94720-8139, USA

    Maciej Haranczyk

Authors
  1. Aleksandra Mostrąg
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  2. Tomasz Puzyn
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  3. Maciej Haranczyk
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Correspondence to Tomasz Puzyn.

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Responsible editor: Ake Bergman

Electronic Supplementary Material

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Supporting Information

The Supporting Information contains a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet including: (i) the details of QSPR modeling of log K OW and log K OA for all studied compounds; (ii) the results of determining the applicability domains for both QSPR models; (iii) the calculated values of log K AW partition coefficient; (iv) the list of selected representative homologues as long as their half-lives estimated by ‘The PBT Profiler, v. 1.302’; (v) the results of ‘The OECD POV and LRTP Screening Tool, v. 2.2’ calculations. (XLS 782 kb)

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Mostrąg, A., Puzyn, T. & Haranczyk, M. Modeling the overall persistence and environmental mobility of sulfur-containing polychlorinated organic compounds. Environ Sci Pollut Res 17, 470–477 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-009-0257-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-009-0257-7

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