Fate of Linear Alkylbenzenes Released to the Coastal Environment near Boston Harbor

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• 作者：Ö ; rjan Gustafsson ; Christopher M. Long ; John MacFarlane ; and Philip M. Gschwend
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
• 出版年：2001
• 出版时间：May 15, 2001
• 年：2001
• 卷：35
• 期：10
• 页码：2040 - 2048
• 全文大小：144K
• 年卷期：v.35,no.10(May 15, 2001)
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

Linear alkylbenzenes (LABs) were used to assess thefates of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) releasedto a large urban harbor and the adjoining offshorewaters. We found that particulate concentrations of theindividual C₁₂ LAB isomers in 1996 summertime surface watersdecreased from 1 pM in Boston Harbor to 20-200 fM incoastal Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays. Levels fell toonly a few fM in offshore Gulf of Maine locations.These observations were consistent with municipalwastewater in Boston Harbor as the predominant inputfollowed by dispersal via known circulation patterns in thisregion. Phase-dependent removal rate coefficients forflushing, vertical scavenging, volatilization, photodegradation,and biodegradation of individual LAB isomers wereconstrained from literature, field observations, and laboratoryexperiments and combined with estimates of wastewaterrelease rates into a predictive 3-box model. Verticalscavenging, biodegradation, and flushing were predictedto be the most important fate processes for C₁₂ LABs in theBoston Harbor-MA Bay-Cape Cod Bay flow systemwith about 1% of the harbor releases "surviving" passage.For HOCs such as the relatively bio-recalcitrant LAB,6-phenyldodecane, it appears that we are at present ableto predict the coastal fate of harbor-introduced HOCs inthis system within a factor of 2. Contrary to expectations frombiodegradation experiments, the ratio of internal-to-external (I/E) LAB isomers decreased offshore in bothwater and sediment samples, suggesting we are "missing"an important process affecting LAB fates.