Temporal variations of PCDD/Fs and PBDEs from burnt forest soil in Ulsan

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are representative persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It has been widely reported that PAHs and dioxins are produced during the biomass burning. On the other hand, PBDEs are known to be commercially produced. Recently, however, PBDEs were reported to be also produced by incomplete combustion of vegetation, implying that the contribution of biomass burning to PBDE levels in remote or rural areas cannot be ignored. In this study, burnt soils were collected 19, 111, 209, 311, and 492 days after a forest fire which occurred on 9 March, 2013 in a semi-rural area of Ulsan. The samples including unburnt control samples were extracted and cleaned up for GC/HRMS analysis. The target compounds were 17 toxic PCDD/Fs, tetra-/penta- and hexa-/hepta-BDEs in the 16 soil samples. In a further study, additional experiment would be carried out for the levels and patterns of PCDD/Fs and PBDEs in different matrices such as tree barks, ashes, and water