AUTHOR=Luo Qing , Wang Congcong , Gu Leiyan , Wu Zhongping , Li Yujie 

TITLE=Temporal trends of organophosphate esters in a sediment core from the tidal flat of Liao River estuary, Northeast China

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2023.1160371

DOI=10.3389/fmars.2023.1160371

ISSN=2296-7745

ABSTRACT=The pollution trends and inventory of organophosphate esters (OPEs) were investigated on the basis of the depth profiles of OPEs in the sediment core collected from the tidal flat of the Liao River estuary in northeastern China. The concentration of ∑13OPEs in the sediment core has continued to increase since records began, peaking at 10.8 ng g-1 dry weight (dw) in the 1960s, then declining to a low of 3.91 ng g-1 dw in the 1980s, then increasing again to 20.4 ng g-1 dw in the 2000s. After a brief decline, it began to increase, peaking at 27.0 ng g-1 dw in 2018. Tributyl-n-phosphate was found in every layer of the sediment core and accounted for 31.9 - 100% of ∑13OPEs. OPEs fluxes ranged from 46.5 to 105 ng cm-2 y-1 in the sediment layers deposited between 2007 and 2018. The sediment core’s OPEs inventory was estimated to be 1541 ng cm-2. The historical contamination trends of OPEs in Chinese sediments were first reported in this work, which was important for assessing the environmental risk of OPEs.