PARENT SESSION
38 - Soil and Sediment Contamination
8:00 AM to 6:30 PM, Tuesday, 14 May 2002
Exhibition Area

(38-54) Xenoetrogens in the river Elbe and its tributaries.

Heemken, Olaf^*,1, Kuballa, Jürgen¹, Stachel, Burkhard², ¹ GALAB, Geesthacht, Germany² Wassergütestelle Elbe, Hamburg, Germany

ABSTRACT- Xenoestrogenes are anthropogenic contaminants which can influence the reproduction systems of organisms exposed to. Of major concern are industrial chemicals which are produced in large quantities and are released into the environment during production, processing or application. Such chemicals are alkylphenol ethoxylates and bisphenols. The biodegradation of alkylphenol ethoxylates leads to the corresponding alkylphenols. Products of the biodegradation of bisphenols are 4-hydroxyacetophenone and 4-hydroxybenzoic acid. All above mentioned compounds are of environmental relevance because of their endocrine potential. An investigation of the river Elbe from June 1998 showed, that these compounds were present in water samples in the middle ng/L-range and in sediments in the g/kg-range [ARGE-Bericht]. Because of this, a further study was carried out in July 2000 for both water and sediments of the river Elbe. Results of this monitoring are presented in the following sections: Bisphenol A was detected in all samples of the river Elbe. In water samples the concentration ranged from 4 to 92 ng/l, in sediments from 10 to 380 g/kg dry mass (dm). Bisphenol F was below the detection limit in water samples, in sediments the max. concentration was 7 g/kg dm. Among the metabolites of the bisphenols the highest concentration of 4400 g/kg dm was determined for 4-hydroxybenzoic acid. A correlation between the concentrations of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and the bisphenols was not recognizable, so that other input sources must be considered for this compound. Among the octylphenol ethoxylates (OPnEO), compounds with 1 to 6 ethoxy units were detected in sediment samples. OP2EO and OP3EO usually had the highest concentrations, which reached 344 g/kg dm for OP2EO and 253 g/kg dm for OP3EO. In water samples only OP1EO und OP2EO were detected with concentration being below 10 ng/L. In water samples octylphenol had the highest concentration. Nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPnEO) with 1 to 3 ethoxy units were present in both water and sediment samples. In sediments the concentrations of NP1EO reached 670, those of NP2EO 3000 and NP3EO 125 g/kg dm. The concentration of nonylphenol ranged from 27 to 430 g/kg dm. In water samples the average concentrations of the NPnEO detected were in the range between 20 and 30 ng/L.

Key words: Bisphenol A, Alkylphenols, Sediments, Water