Search

Occupational exposure to airborne particles can increase the development of morbidity, also because of the chemical composition of particulate matter (PM). In workplace, where manual and mechanical disassembly of electric and electronic equipment (EEE) take place, there are evident risks of respiratory exposure to a great number of different toxic organic compounds present in the electrical and plastic materials of which the equipment is made. Airborne particles are numerous, cover a wide range of sizes and are rich in toxic organic compounds. In the present work, a sampling program was conducted and ultrafine, fine and coarse airborne particles were collected in three EEE waste treatment plants. Afterwards, the extraction and analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), their nitro and oxygenated derivatives (nitroPAHs, oxyPAHs), organophosphorus compounds (OPEs), Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs), and polyfluoralkyl substances (PFASs) was performed. The percentage ratio of the mass of organic compounds and the mass of the ultrafine fraction of PM (PM 0.1 ) was higher than those of the fine and coarse fractions. Even with low concentrations, the co-occurrence of numerous potentially toxic compounds capable of easily reaching other organs passing by the lung vasculature, through the lymph makes the working environment unhealthy., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All the authors declare no actual or potential conflicts of interest regarding the submitted manuscript., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Poly- and perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs) are widely used in the electrical and electronic appliance industry to the point that waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), also known as e-waste, creates significant potential for PFAS exposure (by inhalation, ingestion, or dermal exposure) for people handling and recycling e-waste. The aim of this work was the development of an untargeted analytical approach in order to detect the presence of possible unknown PFASs in particulate matter collected in three Italian e-waste facilities through liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry (LC-HR-MS/MS) in negative ionization mode. By means of three acquisition experiments, nine compounds were detected as candidate PFASs, and three were definitively confirmed by comparison with their authentic standards. Among these, bistriflimide (bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide), an ionic liquid with several promising technological applications, was the most abundant compound detected in all three recycling plants. This is the first study associating the presence of fluorinated ionic liquids with e-waste, and as these chemicals are not only toxic and persistent but also highly mobile, our results indicate the need to include them in future PFAS research. Only further data on their actual environmental diffusion will determine whether they are emerging pollutants or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is generally considered a secondary raw material for the recovery of valuable components. However, emerging issues regarding the impact of suspended particles arising from WEEE recycling operations are a concern. It was recently demonstrated that samples from three different WEEE plants were rich in organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs). Since exposure to a xenobiotic can lead to its biotransformation through human metabolism routes, in the present study, the metabolism of eight OPFRs of interest in our sampling campaign (triphenyl phosphate (TPhP), tri-m-tolyl phosphate (TMTP), ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate (EHDPhP), tributoxyethyl phosphate (TBOEP), diphenyl phosphate (DPhP), trichloroethyl phosphate (TCEP), tris(1,3-dichloropropan-2-yl) phosphate (TDClPP) and bisphenol A bis(diphenyl phosphate) (BDP)) was investigated. Their metabolism was studied at different time points in three matrices: human liver microsomes, human hepatocytes and human skin microsomes. This study, which was run using a common experimental setting, allowed easy comparison of results for each OPFR of interest, and a comparison with other data in the literature was performed. In particular, a number of metabolites not previously described were detected, and for the first time, it was shown that TPhP could be metabolized in human skin microsomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analytical method for detecting flame retardants was slightly modified and optimized for the simultaneous determination of 11 organophosphate esters (OPEs) and 26 polyfluoralkyl substances (PFASs) contained in dust. All the analytes were determined in HPLC/MS–MS, and OPEs were also analyzed in GC/MS, and the results were compared. The study was conducted through the investigation of the Standard Reference Material SRM 2585 of the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST). The results were compared with the available reference mass fraction reported in the NIST certificate. The mass fraction obtained for the other OPEs and PFASs was compared to available data in the literature. After verifying the reliability of the results, the method was applied to environmental samples of settled dust, collected in four workplaces, where OPE and PFAS content is expected to be higher than in house dust: a mechanical workshop, an electronic repair center, a disassembly site, and a shredding site of two electronic waste recycling plants. By analyzing both PFASs and OPEs in the same samples, the present work demonstrated that the selected working places were more polluted in OPEs than houses; on the contrary, PFAS content in house dust proved to be more than ten times higher than that in workplaces. Additional research is necessary to confirm these data. Nevertheless, because this preliminary study showed not negligible concentrations of OPEs in some workplaces and of PFASs in houses, their monitoring should be extended to other domestic and selected working sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffusion and the recycling of electric and electronic equipment waste (WEEE) are an important issue for industrialised countries. During treatment operations of this equipment, legacy and emerging halogenated flame retardant can be released in the environment, causing great concern for their toxicity. For this purpose, a method to simultaneously determine polybrominated biphenyl ethers, hexabromocyclododecane, 10 emerging brominated flame retardants and in parallel-polychlorinated biphenyls was optimised and applied to particulate matter samples collected within a WEEE facility. In this paper, starting from a previously published method, we drastically simplified the sample preparation, reducing the overall completion time, solvent consumption, costs and achieving adequate selectivity and sensitivity for all the target compounds. The multi–analyte method was evaluated in terms of reproducibility, linearity, recovery, limits of detection, limit of quantification, and matrix effect and compared to the previous method. Quantitative analyses were carried out by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in negative chemical ionisation, using matrix-matched calibration curves. The reliability and robustness of the method were demonstrated through the analysis of certified and reference compounds in Standard Reference Material 2585. The most abundant compounds in particulate matter samples, collected in an electric and electronic equipment waste treatment plant, were BDE 47 (3.9 ng m−3), CB 138 (2.7 ng m−3), and 1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy) ethane (4.2 ng m−3). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]