Anthropogenic Pollutants in Extracts from Maritsa Iztok Dumps

World Multidisciplinary Earth Sciences Symposium 2017

Stefanova, Maya^1 ; Milakovska, Zlatka^2 ; Marinov, Stefan^1

Institute of Organic Chemistry with Centre of Phytochemistry, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Acad. G. Bonchev str., Sofia

1113, Bulgaria^1

Geological Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Acad. G. Bonchev str., Sofia

1113, Bulgaria^2

关键词: Anthropogenic pollutants;    Endocrine disruption;    Environmental problems;    Human health problems;    Industrial pollutants;    Organic contaminant;    Organic geochemistry;    Potential contaminants;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/95/4/042003/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/95/4/042003

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

Coals are suspected for many human health problems and are an object of the new discipline - "medical geology". Potential human health risk of organic compounds with coal/lignite provenance includes endocrine disruption, nephrotoxicity, cancer, etc. Recent investigations proved that different organic components, i.e. hydrocarbons, phenols etc. move through/release out of the dump area as a result of alteration processes of the organic matter (OM) caused by the wash-out and/or drainage processes. The timeliness of the present study is based on the scarcity of information on organic geochemistry of dump materials from open pit coal mines and weathered lignites in particular. The limited number of studies on dumps clarifies that even for the "short" time span (some tens of years) in geological point of view, processes of transformation of the extractable OM are detectable. The secondary phases, a result of the OM transformations, move through and out of the dump area and could be potential contaminants for the surface/underground waters and soils in the area. Another environmental problem comes from the air-born VOCs and products of the modern chemical industry. By GC-MS in the slightly polar fractions of the chloroform extracts of dump samples a broad set of components was determined, i.e. phthalates (dominant), i-propyl palmitate, i-propyl myristate, n-hexyl benzoates, etc. These organic contaminants could be regarded more likely as anthropogenic (originating from plasticizers, industrial pollutants, etc.). Presently, it seems that the identified compounds do not represent an acute toxic risk from an environmental viewpoint. However, some compounds could raise concerns and further attention is needed to be focused on them.