Evaluating urban indoor and outdoor PM10-bound organochlorine pesticides. Air quality status and health impact

Abstract

PM10-bound OCPs were collected simultaneously for a year at an outdoor and indoor location in Madrid City, Spain. They were extracted by accelerated solvent extraction and quantified by GC/EM. The aim was to solve the lack of scientific information concerning that environmental scenery by acquiring knowledge on air quality status and health impact. Outdoor and indoor air annual average PM10‐bound ƩOCPs concentration was 684.81 and 721.72 pg/m3, with significant contribution of the molecular weight OCPs lower than 400 g/mol. Hexachlorobenzene and dieldrin displayed the highest concentrations individually, whereas heptachlor and 2,4′-DDD and 2,4′-DDT were the lowest ones. Although higher OCPs concentrations in the cold than warm period were determined, a high outdoor vs indoor correlation was observed over the entire study (r = 0.999). The more representative OCPs within the target air mixtures drove to hexachlorobenzene (outdoor and indoor air) in addition to mirex (outdoor) and 4,4′-DDE (indoor). I/O air pollutant ratios were higher than one for all target compounds except for dieldrin. Whereas the estimated carcinogenic risk falls within the acceptable range set by the US‐EPA (<10−4) for each target pollutant, except for outdoor dieldrin (winter and spring), the accumulated seasonal levels are above the acceptable risk in outdoor (for all seasons) and indoor (winter and spring). Although the use of OCPs has been banned in preterit times, their assessment should still be addressed to know outdoor and indoor human exposure to these pollutants and to adopt efficient remediation measures.