Hybrid NAA method for assessment of the levels of organic halogen compounds in the atmosphere in China

Abstract Passive air samplers (polyurethane foam disks) were deployed at 25 urban sites and 66 rural sites over the period of July to October 2005, partly between October 2005 and January 2006 for about 120 days across China, and analyzed for extractable organo-chlorine /-bromine /-iodine (EOCl/EOBr/EOI) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) using hybrid neutron activation analysis (NAA) combined with gas chromatographymass spectrometry (GC-MS). The average concentration of EOCl, EOBr, EOI and ΣPCBs among all the sites were 173.7, 3.5, 1.0 and 0.74 ng/d, respectively. Higher values of EOCl/Br/I and PCBs were detected in the areas of high usage and high emission, which were linked to relatively high-income areas in China, while lower in the west ill-developed region of China, which indicated that these pollutants mainly came from industrial pollution. Higher EOCl contents in traffic areas stated that the exhaust emission from vehicle was another main source of organochlorines in the air. The relative proportions of the known organochlorines (84 PCB congeners) to total EOCl were 0.02–3.0%, which implied that most of EOCl measured in air were unknown.