Occurrence of plastic additives in outdoor air particulate matters from two industrial parks of Tarragona, Spain: Human inhalation intake risk assessment

Abstract Plastic additives include several kinds of chemicals that are added to the polymer matrix to improve the final product quality and prevent deterioration effects. They are used in a large quantity of materials, so their presence in the environment is expected. This study has developed and validated a method based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry after pressurised liquid extraction to determine sixteen plastic additives including UV-stabilizers, aromatic and phenolic antioxidants and some of their degradation products in particulate matter (PM 10 ) from outdoor air. Apparent recoveries were above 85% for most of compounds and low detection limits (pg m −3 ) were achieved. This is the first study to determine these types of contaminant in the PM 10 of outdoor air from two locations surrounded by different industries. Various compounds were found in almost all samples; BHT, BHT-Q, 2,4-DTBP, BHT-CHO, UV320, UV328, Irgafos168 and Iragonx1076, with concentrations ranging from  −3 . Estimated daily intakes (EDIs) via ambient inhalation were calculated for each polymer additive and for different subpopulation groups classified by age. Two possible exposure scenarios (low, based on geometric mean, and high, 95th percentile) were simulated, and 0.51 ng kg bw −1 day −1 was the EDI in the worst case scenario for children.