| Abstract |
Flame Retardants are chemicals that are added into flammable materials such as plastics, textiles to prevent fires and to save lives. The most important group of flame retardants is the brominated flame retardants. Brominated Fame Retardants (BFRs) are a diverse group of compounds that are used or have been used in a variety of consumer products. The BRFs are produced via direct bromination of organic molecules or via addition of bromine in alkenes. Production, application and environmental occurrence of high production BFRs include Tetrabromobisphenol A, Polybrominated Biphenyls, Penta-, Octa-, Deca-BDEs and Hexabromocyclododecane. These compounds have been detected in environment, which can be attributed to the anthropogenic uses of these compounds. Recently, environmental problems relating to BFRs have become a matter of greater concern than before. One of the reasons for this is the marked increase in PBDE levels in breast milk in Sweden and North America. The possible sources of emission of BFRs into the environment are effluent and flue gases from BFR factories and other facilities processing BFRs. With respect to the environmental behavior, the lower BFRs are more volatile, more water soluble and more bioaccumulative than the higher BFRs. The most probable route for exposure of human population to PBDEs is through the diet. Under the International Program on Chemical Safety, the WHO has published Environmental Health Criteria relating to BFRs, in which the health and environmental effects of the chemicals are evaluated and their potential risks are assessed. The EU has banned the use of PBDEs in electrical and electronic equipment as of 1 July 2006 and has banned the use of pentaBDEs and octaBDEs as of 15 August 2004. There are a lot of analytical methods for the determination of BFRs from environmental and human samples. Sample pretreatment, extraction, cleanup and fractionation, injection techniques, chromatographic separation, detection methods, quality control and method validation are discussed. BFRs have been detected not only in environmental samples including air, water, waste, sediment, marine mammals, fish, and birds but also in human samples in breast milk, serum, tissues. Temporal trends in PBDEs levels in the environmental and in humans worldwide seem to vary, depending on the region or country, with possible reflections of the historic and current use of PBDEs.
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Μελέτη της παρουσίας των βρωμιωμένων επιβραδυντικών φλόγας στο περιβάλλον και σε ανθρώπους
