DSpace at VNU: Contamination by perfluorinated compounds in water near waste recycling and disposal sites in Vietnam

DSpace at VNU: Contamination by perfluorinated compounds in water near waste recycling and disposal sites in Vietnam tài...

Contamination by perfluorinated compounds in water

near waste recycling and disposal sites in Vietnam

Joon-Woo Kim&Nguyen Minh Tue&Tomohiko Isobe&

Kentaro Misaki&Shin Takahashi&Pham Hung Viet&

Shinsuke Tanabe

Received: 6 February 2012 / Accepted: 25 June 2012 / Published online: 7 July 2012

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V 2012

Abstract There are very few reports on the

contamina-tion by perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) in the

environ-ment of developing countries, especially regarding their

emission from waste recycling and disposal sites This is

the first study on the occurrence of a wide range of PFCs

(17 compounds) in ambient water in Vietnam, including

samples collected from a municipal dumping site (MD),

an e-waste recycling site (ER), a battery recycling site

(BR) and a rural control site The highest PFC

concen-tration was found in a leachate sample from MD

(360 ng/L) The PFC concentrations in ER and BR

(mean, 57 and 16 ng/L, respectively) were also

signifi-cantly higher than those detected in the rural control

site (mean, 9.4 ng/L), suggesting that municipal solid

waste and waste electrical and electronic equipment are

potential contamination sources of PFCs in Vietnam In general, the most abundant PFCs were perfluoroocta-noic acid (PFOA), perfluorononaperfluoroocta-noic acid (PFNA), and perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFUDA; <1.4–100, <1.2–

100, and <0.5–20 ng/L, respectively) Interestingly, there were specific PFC profiles: perfluoroheptanoic acid and perfluorohexanoic acid (88 and 77 ng/L, re-spectively) were almost as abundant as PFOA in MD leachate (100 ng/L), whereas PFNA was prevalent in ER and BR (mean, 17 and 6.2 ng/L, respectively) and PFUDA was the most abundant in municipal wastewater (mean, 5.6 ng/L), indicating differences in PFC contents

in different waste materials

Keywords PFCs Surface water Vietnam Waste disposal sites Waste recycling sites

Introduction

Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) are substances with use-ful properties, including thermal and chemical stability, oil, stain, grease, and water repellency, which make them valuable in thousands of important industrial applica-tions, including those in automotive, electronics, and textile industries (Kissa 2001) They are also used as coatings in many daily products such as nonstick cook-ware, food packaging, and fabrics Large amounts of PFCs have been discharged into the environment, and consequently contamination of drinking water, ground-water, wasteground-water, and seaground-water, as well as sediment and

DOI 10.1007/s10661-012-2759-x

Center for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES),

Ehime University,

2-5 Bunkyo-cho,

Matsuyama 790-8577, Japan

e-mail: shint@agr.ehime-u.ac.jp

Senior Research Fellow Center, Ehime University,

2-5 Bunkyo-cho,

Matsuyama 790-8577, Japan

Centre for Environmental Technology and Sustainable

Development (CETASD), Hanoi University of Science,

334 Nguyen Trai,

Hanoi, Vietnam

air has been frequently reported worldwide (Ahrens et al.

2009; Jahnke et al 2007; Sakurai et al 2010) These

compounds have been also detected in tissues of wild

animals (Giesy and Kannan2001; Hart et al.2008a,b;

Ishibashi et al.2008) and human tissues (Harada et al

2011; Kannan et al.2004; Tao et al.2008; Yeung et al

2008) Toxicity of PFCs has not been well characterized,

but effects on liver such as hepatomegaly and

hepatocel-lular adenoma, developmental toxicity, immunotoxicity,

and cancer induction have been reported (Andersen et al

2008) In 2009, perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and

perfluorooctanesulfonyl fluoride (PFOSF) have been

added to the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) list in

Annex B of the Stockholm Convention due to their

persistence, bioaccumulation, long-range environmental

transport and adverse health effects

Similar to the case of other developing countries, there

are concerns regarding the increasing chemical

contami-nation due to rapid industrial development and lack of

effective chemical control and waste management in

Vietnam The impact on the aquatic environment is

expected to be severe, considering that 95 % of domestic

wastewater is discharged into the water bodies without

treatment (Hoai et al.2010) The receiving water bodies

are used for irrigation and can also serve as sources of

drinking water Therefore, persistent organic compounds

from wastewater can potentially impact the aquatic

eco-systems and the quality of drinking water supplies There

have been reports on the contamination of surface water

in Vietnam by legacy POPs such as polychlorinated

biphenyls (PCBs) and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs)

(Hung and Thiemann 2002) A recent study has also

indicated widespread occurrence of PFOS and

perfluor-ooctanoic acid (PFOA) in water at low concentrations in

the capital Hanoi (in nanograms per liter levels) (Tanaka

et al.2006) However, despite the long usage history of

PFCs, very limited data are available on their

environ-mental distribution and fate in Vietnam, especially for

compounds other than PFOS and PFOA, including those

with high production volume worldwide such as

per-fluorohexanesulfonate (PFHxS) and perfluorononanoic

acid (PFNA) Furthermore, there is no information

re-garding the release of PFCs, contained in disposed goods

and other solid waste materials, from waste recycling and

disposal sites in developing countries, which have been

recognized as contamination hotspots of POPs including

PCBs, OCPs, and polybrominated diphenyl ether flame

retardants (Minh et al 2006; Tue et al 2010) In this

context, the present study was initiated to investigate the

occurrence of 17 PFCs in water from various locations in Vietnam, including a municipal dumping site, an elec-tronic waste (e-waste) recycling site and a battery recy-cling site, in order to elucidate possible contamination sources affecting the surrounding aquatic environments

Materials and methods

Sample collection

Water samples were collected from Hanoi city and its surrounding areas, Vietnam (Fig 1) in January 2011 (dry season) The sampling locations in Hanoi included areas near a municipal dumping site (MD; Lam Son, n0

10, leachate and river water) and a municipal wastewa-ter discharge station (MW; Yen So pump station, n08, wastewater canals) Samples were also collected from creeks, rivers, and ponds at an e-waste recycling site (ER; Bui Dau, n010), a lead battery recycling site (BR; Dong Mai, n07), and a rural control site (RU; Duong Quang, n06) in Hung Yen province The last three locations were small villages 20–30 km from Hanoi with approximately 250, 280, and 100 house-holds, respectively In all the villages, domestic waste-water was discharged directly into the river Other details on the recycling activities in ER and BR have been described elsewhere (Tue et al.2010)

Duplicate water samples of 100 mL were collected into two polypropylene bottles which were pre-rinsed with methanol and washed three times with water of the respective sampling points The samples were kept in a cool box, frozen at−20 °C and then transported with gel ice to the environmental specimen bank at Ehime University, Japan where they were stored at−25 °C until analysis

Chemicals and standards

Seventeen PFCs including C4, C6–8, and C10 perfluor-oalkylsulfonates (PFASs), perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA), and C4–14 perfluoroalkylcarboxylic acids (PFCAs) were selected as target chemicals (Table 1) The standard reagents with a purity of >98 % (PFCA mixed solution (PFC-MXA), PFAS mixed solution (PFS-MXA), and PFOSA solution) and the isotope-labeled internal standards (PFCA and PFAS mixed so-lution and PF[13C8]OSA solution) were obtained from Wellington Laboratories, Canada Stock solutions were

prepared by mixing the PFC-MXA, PFS-MXA, and

PFOSA solutions in methanol (500μg/L for each

com-pound) and stored in amber glass vials at −20 °C

Working solutions were freshly prepared in 60 %

meth-anol in Milli-Q water from the stock Mixed standards

were prepared and used for fortification in recovery

experiments and for standards calibration All solvents

used in this study were of LC-MS grade Ammonium

acetate was obtained from Wako Chemicals, Japan Ultrapure water was delivered by a Direct-Q water purification system (Millipore, Japan)

Extraction

Solid-phase extraction was carried out as described by Taniyasu et al (2005) with minor modifications

0 20km

MW

ER BR

N

Municipal dumping site (MD) Municipal wastewater station (MW) Battery recycling site (BR)

BR6

BR1

BR2 BR4

BR5 BR7

Pond

N

smelting factory

E-waste recycling site (ER)

recycling facility wire burning site

ER3 ER1 ER2 ER4 ER5

ER6

ER8 ER9 ER10

Pond

Pond

River Pond

Pond

N

0 200m

0 400m

MW1 MW5 MW2 MW3

MW4 MW6 MW7 MW8

N

400m

DS: dumping site

RF: garbage receptor

facility

MD1 MD2 MD3

MD4

MD5

MD6 MD7 MD8 MD9 MD10 DS

RF

Rural site (RU)

Pond

Pond

Pond

RU1 RU2 RU3

RU4 RU5

RU6

N

residential area pond, lake field

river, creek drainage flow direction

106º E 108º E 110º E 112º E 114º E 96º E 98º E 100º E 102º E 104º E

94º E 92º E

10º N

12º N

14º N

16º N

18º N

20º N

22º N

24º N

Vietnam

N

200 0 200 Kilometers

Fig 1 Maps showing the sampling locations

Briefly, the water sample was filtered through a glass

microfiber filter (GF/F, Whatman) to remove

particu-late matter, acidified to pH 4 with 4-M HCl, and then

spiked with 50 μL of an internal standard solution

containing nine labeled PFCs (100 ng/L each) An

Oasis hydrophilic–lipophilic balance extraction

car-tridge (60 mg/3 cm3, Waters, Tokyo, Japan) was

con-ditioned consecutively with 5 mL of methanol, 5 mL

of a triethylamine solution in methanol (0.1 %, v/v),

and 5 mL of Milli-Q water (adjusted to pH 4) at 2

drops/s Then, the sample was passed through the

cartridge at a flow rate of 1 drop/s and rinsed with

5 mL of Milli-Q water (pH 4) The cartridge was then

dried under vacuum for 10 min, and the analytes were eluted with 5 mL of methanol and 5 mL of 0.1 % triethylamine in methanol into 15-mL vials The eluate was blown to just dryness with a gentle stream nitro-gen gas and reconstituted to 450μL of 60 % methanol

in Milli-Q water Finally, 50 μL of 100 ng/L 13

C8 -PFOSA was spiked as injection standard

Instrumental analysis The extracts were analyzed using an ACQUITY™ ultra-performance liquid chromatography system (Waters, USA) coupled with a Quattro Micro™ API

Table 1 Target PFCs and UPLC-MS/MS parameters

Internal standards

Injection standard

triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (MS/MS, Waters,

USA) in negative ionization mode The injection

vol-ume was set at 10 μL The chromatographic

separa-tion was achieved with a ZORBAX Extend-C18

analytical column (1.8 μm, 2.1 mm (i.d.)×100 mm;

Agilent Technologies, USA) with a binary gradient of

water containing 10-mM ammonium acetate as

sol-vent A and methanol/acetonitrile (1:1, v/v) as solsol-vent

B at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min The mobile phase was

initially 60 % A and 40 % B for 2 min and then

changed to 10 % A and 90 % B in a period of

10 min and held for 13 min At the end of the analysis,

the mobile phase was changed to the initial

composi-tion, and the column was equilibrated for 5 min prior

to the next injection The column and sample tray

temperatures were kept at 40 and 10 °C, respectively

The capillary voltage was held at 3.5 kV Source and

desolvation temperatures were kept at 120 and 450 °C,

respectively Desolvation- and cone-gas flows were

kept at 600 and 40 L/h, respectively The selected

precursor ions were either the [M–K]−or [M–H]−ions

(Table1)

Quality control

Quantification of PFCs was performed using an

inter-nal standard method A five-point calibration curve (1,

5, 10, 50, and 100 μg/L) was constructed for each

analyte The coefficients of correlation (R2) were from

0.995 to 0.999 The recoveries of the 17 PFCs through

the whole analytical procedure, checked through

trip-licate analysis of water samples spiked with 50μL of a

mixture of individual target compounds (100 ng each)

in methanol, ranged from 68 to 115 % with relative

standard deviation of 2.3 %–13 % Every set of seven

samples was analyzed with a procedural blank,

obtained by extracting 100 mL of Milli-Q water stored

in a pre-cleaned polypropylene bottle The limits of

detection (LODs) were evaluated for each sample,

based on the blank concentration, the concentrations

factors, the sample volume, and a signal-to-noise ratio

of 3 and were in the range of 0.5–2.7 ng/L

Statistical analysis

Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS

software (version 12 for Windows, SPSS Inc., 2001)

The Mann–Whitney U test was used to examine the

difference in PFC concentrations between a pair of

locations Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to measure the relationship between the concentrations of PFCs in water samples All concen-trations below the LODs were treated as zero A p value of less than 0.05 was considered as indicating statistical significance

Results and discussion

General contamination status of PFCs

Information on the occurrence of PFCs in Vietnam so far has been limited, with only one report on PFOA and PFOS in tap water and ambient water from rivers, lakes, and wastewater treatment plants in Hanoi (n016) (Tanaka et al 2006) To our knowledge, the present study is the first report on 17 PFCs, including PFOA and PFOS, in ambient water from Vietnam PFCs were detected in 40 of the 41 samples analyzed

at total concentrations from 2.1 to 360 ng/L (Table2) PFCAs were found at much higher frequency (98 %) than PFASs (27 %) The total concentrations of PFCAs, ranging from ND to 320 ng/L (mean, 8.1–

50 ng/L in different locations), were also higher than those of PFASs (ND–43; mean, ND–6.8 ng/L) by a factor of 1.1–24 The predominance of PFCAs is consistent with the previous results in Vietnam and similar to the pattern reported in river water from China (Shanghai), Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and USA (see Table2for detailed comparison) These data indicate a common and wide-spread use of products containing PFCAs or their potential precursors fluo-rotelomer alcohols (FTOHs) in many countries includ-ing Vietnam, reflectinclud-ing the wide application range of these compounds (Prevedouros et al.2006) However, the relative proportion of PFCAs and PFASs in water depends on the sources of runoff and PFASs have been reported as predominant in France as well as in

heavi-ly industrialized areas in India (Allahabad), Taiwan (Table 2), and China (Dongguan, PFOS 94 ng/L and PFOA 4.3 ng/L) (So et al.2007)

PFOA, PFUDA, and PFNA were the most common compounds, found in 68, 68, and 56 % of the samples, respectively PFDA, PFBS, PFPA, PFTrDA, perfluor-oheptanoic acid (PFHpA), PFOS, PFHxS, and PFHpS were detected at much lower frequencies (<27 %) Trace levels of PFDS, PFDDA, PFTeDA, and PFOSA were also found in all the samples but below

T

the detection limits of 0.8–1.5 ng/L PFOA, PFNA,

and PFUDA were also the major compounds in terms

of concentrations, in the ranges of <1.4–100, <1.2–

100, and <0.5–20 ng/L, respectively, with mean

con-centrations of 1.2–17, 0.49–17, and 0.71–5.6 ng/L,

respectively, in different locations The detection

fre-quencies of PFOA, PFNA, and PFUDA indicate a

ubiquitous contamination by these compounds in

am-bient water from Vietnam and their higher

concentra-tions may be explained by a more extensive use in

consumer products in the country and/or by their

rel-atively higher solubility and thus higher mobility in

water compared with longer-chain PFCAs (Lin et al

2010) Although there is currently no official statistics

available on the usage volumes of PFCs in Vietnam,

PFDA (C10), PFUDA (C11), and PFTrDA (C13) have

been detected at comparable or higher concentrations

(Harada et al.2011) and PFOS at an order of

magni-tude higher concentrations compared with those of

PFOA (C8) and PFNA (C9) in serum of Hanoi

resi-dents (Harada et al 2010) This difference in the

profile of individual PFCs in surface water and human

serum samples suggests that PFOS and longer-chain

PFCAs may be more abundant in human exposure

sources such as food and indoor dust than in aquatic

environments and/or that these compounds may have

longer half-lives and higher bioaccumulation

potential

Possible relationships among the concentrations of

the target PFCs were examined using Spearman’s rank

correlations Due to the low detection frequencies of

many compounds (Table 2), only PFOA, PFNA,

and PFUDA were considered in the analysis of the

whole data set (all sampling locations included) The

only significant positive correlation observed was

be-tween PFOA and PFNA (p00.001), suggesting that

these compounds may share common sources and/or

similar environmental behavior in Vietnamese surface

water in general However, the low correlation

effi-cient (ρ00.47) also indicate large variation of the

PFNA/PFOA ratios with the sampling points

Depending on the locations, PFUA and less

common-ly detected PFCs may have specific sources, which

will be discussed in subsequent sections

Compared with the data reported in other studies

(Table2), concentrations of PFCs in Vietnamese

ambi-ent water were in comparable range with those of

developing countries and generally lower than in

devel-oped countries The PFOS and PFHxS concentrations

observed in this study were lower than the means reported in river water from France (17.4 and 13.6 ng/L) and the USA (mean, 31.2 and 7.29 ng/L) by two orders of magnitude, and the concentrations of PFCAs were also lower than in developed countries, implying limited production and consumption of PFC-containing products

in Vietnam However, there were cases of relatively high contamination levels for individual compounds as described in the subsequent sections

Contamination in urban water

The PFC concentration in the leachate sample from the waste disposal area in MD (360 ng/L) was higher than in all other samples by a factor of 2 to more than

170 (Table 2) This sample had the highest concen-trations of C6–C8 PFASs and C5–C8 PFCAs, suggest-ing municipal waste dumpsuggest-ing sites in Hanoi as potential sources of PFCs PFOA was the most abun-dant compound, followed by PFHpA, perfluorohexa-noic acid (PFHxA), PFPA, PFHxS, and PFOS This distinct profile may be associated with the release of these compounds from a wide variety of household waste materials, such as personal care products, tex-tile, lubricants, electrical and electronic equipment, etc., disposed at the area The contamination level of total PFCs in dumping site leachate in this study was comparable to those reported in effluents of industrial wastewater treatment plants in Thailand (median,

320 ng/L) (Shivakoti et al.2010) but not higher than

in contaminated rivers in China (Shanghai (max,

289 ng/L)) (So et al 2007), Italy (Po River (max,

348 ng/L)) (Loos et al 2008), the USA (Cape Fear River (max, 531 ng/L)) (Nakayama et al 2007), and much lower than in industrial wastewater effluent in Taiwan (>9,000 ng/L) (Lin et al 2010) Furthermore, the PFC concentrations of the other water samples collected at MD but outside the dumping site were much lower than those of the leachate sample (Table2), indicating that the surrounding water bodies were not significantly contaminated by PFCs from the waste disposal area, possibly due to the low volume of runoff during the dry season Since PFCs could be released into surrounding environment during rainy reason, leachate from municipal dumping site should

be considered as a potential contamination source In the present study, the leachate sample from MD was excluded in all subsequent comparison of other water samples

The total PFC concentrations in MW and river

water around MD (leachate not included) in Hanoi

were not statistically different from those in RU

sur-face water (mean, 8.4–12 vs 9.4 ng/L), suggesting

that urban discharge is not an important source of

PFCs in Vietnam However, unique PFC profiles were

observed in urban waters: PFBA was the major

com-pound in MD, similar to the case of RU; whereas

PFUDA was the most abundant compound in MW,

with similar or higher concentrations than those of

PFOA (Fig.2) The predominance of PFUDA in

mu-nicipal wastewater is consistent with the results

obtained in serum of Hanoi residents (Harada et al

2011) PFUDA concentrations in MW (mean, 5.6 and

max, 20 ng/L) were significantly higher than in other

study locations, higher than reported in river water

from many countries and in comparable range as

reported in Japan and the USA (Table 2) These

results suggest potential sources of PFUDA

associ-ated with urban activities in Hanoi The prominence

of PFUDA in surface water from Hanoi, and in East

Asian waters in general, may be related to its

for-mation from the degradation of 10:2 FTOHs, as

suggested by Hart et al (2008b)

Contamination in recycling sites

ER had the highest total concentrations of PFCs with

an average of 57 ng/L, higher than in the other

loca-tions by a factor of 3–7 (Table2) BR also had

signif-icantly higher total concentrations of PFCs (mean,

16 ng/L) than RU These results indicate a release of PFCs from the recycling of waste electrical and elec-tronic equipment and, to a lesser extent, waste lead batteries PFBS and PFTrDA were detected only in ER and BR, whereas PFPA and PFHxS were detected only in ER PFUDA was found at significant higher concentrations in BR than in RU, but lower than in

MW PFNA concentrations were also higher in the recycling sites, especially ER ER had the highest concentrations of PFOA, PFNA (especially in ER1–

3, river and pond near the wastewater discharge from recycling houses, 31–35 and 19–100 ng/L, respective-ly), PFBS, PFTrDA (especially in ER8–10, creek near the wire burning area, 7.6–16 and 7.1–8.6 ng/L, re-spectively), and PFHxA However, as shown in Table2, contamination levels of PFOA in ER (mean,

17 ng/L) were in the lower range of the values reported for river water worldwide, higher than the background levels in India (Allahabad), Brazil, China (Guanting), Germany, France (<10 ng/L), com-parable to those in contaminated areas in India (Chennai), Taiwan and China (Liaoning), but lower than those in the USA and Japan (Osaka) by a factor of 2.5–6.6 Similarly, the contamination levels of PFHxA

in ER (mean, 3.5 ng/L) were higher than in China (Guangzhou) but lower than in river water from Taiwan, France and the USA by more than twofold

On the other hand, the concentrations of PFNA in ER were relatively high (mean, 17 ng/L), only lower than reported in Japan and the USA (20–54 ng/L), resulting

in higher total PFCA concentrations compared with

0

20

40

60

80

100

Municipal waste

Rural control site (RU)

Municipal wastewater station (MW)

Municipal dumping site (MD)

Municipal dumping site leachate

Battery recycling site (BR)

E−waste recycling site (ER)

x

x

x

x x x

x x x

*

*

*

*

*

*

Fig 2 Concentrations of PFCs in 41 environmental water samples from Vietnam Bars, symbols, and asterisks indicate arithmetic means, individual data points, and significantly higher concentrations compared with the rural control site, respectively

industrially contaminated rivers in other developing

countries PFBS and PFTrDA in ER water were more

abundant than reported in a limited number of studies

on river water from other countries

In both recycling sites, PFNA was one of the two

major compounds, at similar or higher abundance

compared with PFOA (Fig.2) This profile is in

con-trast with those observed in the other study locations

as well as those reported in many countries, where

PFNA is a minor compound compared with PFOA

(Table 2) PFNA has been reported as a major PFC

in urban surface water from Japan (Murakami et al

2008), especially after the regulation of PFOS by the

Stockholm Convention (Zushi et al.2011) This may

also be associated with the production and usage of

ammonium perfluorononanoate (Prevedouros et al

2006) Thus, the prominence of PFNA in water from

ER and BR suggests that a major source of this

com-pound at these sites is associated with the recycling

activities of waste electrical and electronic equipment,

including those originated from second-hand

com-modities imported from Japan such as TV, computers,

household appliances, etc (NIESJ 2008) Another

specificity of the recycling sites was the occurrence

of PFBS at relatively high concentrations compared

with other PFCs (Fig 2), indicating that this

com-pound may be used in industrial applications related

to electronic and electric products Significant positive

correlations were found only among the

concentra-tions of PFBS, PFPA, and PFUDA in ER (ρ00.65–

0.68; p<0.05), which can be explained by a release

from common waste materials, different from the

sour-ces of other PFCs

Exposure considerations

Very limited ecotoxicological data for PFCs are available,

and assessment of their exposure guideline levels is still

incomplete, especially for compounds other than PFOS

and PFOA Several provisional advisory levels have been

issued, but only for drinking water: 400 ng/L for PFOA

and 200 ng/L PFOS by the US Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA2009) and 100 ng/L for total PFOA/PFOS

by the German Ministry of Health (GMOH 2006)

Shorter-chain PFCs have been assessed as less toxic, with

advisory guidelines of 600 ng/L for PFBS and PFHxS

and 1,000 ng/L for PFBA, PFPeA, and PFHxA

(Minnesota Department of Health2008) A lower

thresh-old for PFOA has been recommended by the New Jersey

Department of Environmental Protection for prevention

of both non-cancer and cancer effects (40 ng/L) (Post 2007), whereas a threshold of 43 ng/L for PFOS has been used to estimate the risk of avian species consuming aquatic organisms but was considered as possibly over-protective (Nakayama et al.2007) The concentrations of PFCs in ambient water in this study, with the exception of the leachate sample from MD, were much lower than even the most conservative thresholds proposed for drinking water, implying low risks from these chemicals Nevertheless, guideline values may become stricter with new toxicological data and it is necessary to monitor the water quality around waste recycling sites and especially water runoff from the municipal dumping sites in the rainy season

Conclusions

This is the first investigation of the PFC contamination

in water near waste disposal and recycling sites in developing countries, and also the first report on the occurrence of 17 PFCs in Vietnamese ambient water Significantly higher PFC concentrations were found in leachate from the MD and ambient water from the ER, suggesting such sites as potential contamination sour-ces of PFCs in Vietnam However, the contamination levels in these sites were still lower than those reported

in contaminated rivers in developed countries The major PFCs were PFOA, PFHpA, and PFHxA in

MD leachate, PFNA and PFOA in ER and the battery recycling site, PFUDA in the municipal wastewater discharge station, and PFOA in the other locations, indicating specific PFC contamination profiles associ-ated with different kind of waste materials These results suggest that waste recycling and disposal sites

in Vietnam need to be further monitored to control the emission of toxic chemicals including PFCs intro the environment

Tuyen (CETASD) for his help during the sampling Financial support was provided by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S: 20221003) from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Young Scientist (B: 23700077), the waste management research grant (K2343 and K22057) from the Ministry of the Environment, Japan, and grants from Global COE Program from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Sci-ence and Technology (MEXT).

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