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Endocrine Disrupting Compounds from the Source Water of the Huai River (Huainan City), China

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Abstract

The occurrence and environmental risk of eight endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), namely dimethyl phthalate (DMP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), nonyl phenol (NP), bisphenol A (BPA), 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) and estrone (E1), from four water sources (Pingshantou, Wanfenggang, Shisi, and Shiyi) of Huai River (Huainan section) were investigated in this study. Except for DMP only found in Pingshantou, all of the selected EDCs existed widely in the source water. DMP, DEP, BBP, DBP, NP, BPA, EE2, and E1 had the ranges of nd (cannot be detected)-130 ng/L, 25–310, 76–1351, 431–1299, 215–627, 23–107, nd-0.174, and 0.143–0.334 ng/L, respectively. Therefore, the studied water sources were associated with notable levels of EDCs, wherein the concentrations of BBP, DBP, and NP were much higher than the other five chemicals. The selected EDCs appeared to be higher in upstream than in downstream (p < 0.05) for each water source, suggesting that EDCs were subjected to a decreasing with water flow. Correlation analysis suggests that DEP-BP-DBP, NP-BPA, and EE2-E1 might have the same sources, respectively; and the source of NP, EE2, and E1 was different from that of BBP, BEP and BBP, and DEP, respectively. It was observed that both the TAS (total ambient severity) and RQ (risk quotient) were less than 1, indicating that EDCs in Huai River (Huainan section) posed little or no thread to the health of local inhabitants and ecological environmental.

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Acknowledgements

The water plants provided us with the basic information of studied water sources and issued the permission to conduct the sampling in water sources. The authors are grateful for the support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, School of Energy and Environment, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan, People’s Republic of China

    Siping Niu

  2. Environmental Monitoring Central Station of Shandong Province, Jinan, People’s Republic of China

    Cunliang Zhang

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Niu, S., Zhang, C. Endocrine Disrupting Compounds from the Source Water of the Huai River (Huainan City), China. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 74, 471–483 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00244-017-0445-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00244-017-0445-2

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