ACCUMULATION KINETICS OF ORGANOCHLORINATED PESTICIDES BY TRIOLEIN-CONTAINING SEMIPERMEABLE MEMBRANE DEVICES

There is a clear need for rapid,easy to use,effective and low-cost integrative methods that allow not only the direct monitoring of the fate and concentrations of trace level of chemical-contaminant mixture in the environment,but also an assessment of the hazard these chemicals pose to aquatic organisms and human health. Membrane-based passive samplers seem to be a promising tool for the time-integrated monitoring of hydrophobic pollutants in aquatic ecosystems. In these devices the uptake of chemicals is based on the process of passive partitioning of a compound between water and a lipophilic solvent enclosed in a semi-permeable polymeric membrane. Thus,the passive samplers can be used as indicators of bioavailability of chemical pollutants. In this research,uptake kinetics of five organochlorinated pesticides,i. e. chlorines hexachlorobenzene,lindan,aldrin,heptachlor epoxide and 4,4'-DDT,by triolein-containing semipermeable membrane devices(SPMDs)was investigated in a laboratory continuous flow system. Results showed that the concentration kinetics of the analytes by the SPMDs were linear during the exposure period of 20-d and the concentration factors were in the range of 1500—18000. At par per billion levels,the bioconcentration factors were positively corrected with the octanol/water partitioning coefficients. We conclude that SPMDs technology can be used to accumulate lipophilic organochlorinated pesticides from aquatic environment in a similar way as aquatic biota to a level sufficient for further biomakers research.