Distribution of phthalate esters in the groundwater of Jianghan plain, Hubei, China

Abstract

Samples of groundwater were collected from 17 sites in the Jianghan plain in July 2007. Sixteen phthalate esters (PAEs) were detected in samples collected by using solid-phase extraction (SPE)-gas chromatography (GC). The results show that there were one or several PAEs in all the samples, and the concentrations of total PAEs ranged from 80.12 to 1882.18 ng/L. Four PAEs, i.e. di-iso-butyl phthalate (DIBP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), bis (2-ethoxyethyl) phthalate (BEEP) and di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate DEHP) were the dominant species. Among these, DIBP, DBP and DEHP concentrations were closely related to the water supply from the Yangtze River, Hanjiang River and Honghu Lake. However, the distribution of BEEP was irregular, which may be due to the application of some kind of products containing BEEP in the related areas. PAE distribution was irrelevant to the electrical conductivity and sample depth.

Keywords

phthalate esters (PAEs) / groundwater / solid-phase extraction (SPE) / gas chromatography (GC)

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40602038 and 40811120027). We appreciate Prof. Qi Shihua and associate Prof. Han Hongyin in Key Laboratory of Biology and Environmental Geology of Ministry of Education for their assistance in sample pretreatment and analysis.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg