Occurrence of Volatile and Semi-Volatile Organic Pollutants in the Russian Arctic Atmosphere: The International Siberian Shelf Study Expedition (ISSS-2020)

Environmental issues in the Arctic region are of primary importance due to the fragility of the Arctic ecosystem. Mainly persistent organic compounds are monitored in the region by nine stationary laboratories. Information on the volatile (VOC) and semi volatile (SVOC) organic priority pollutants is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atmosphere
Main Authors: Dmitry S. Kosyakov, Irina S. Shavrina, Nikolay V. Ul’yanovskii, Dmitry E. Lakhmanov, Albert T. Lebedev
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021
Subjects:
Russian Arctic
Arctic ocean
air pollution
volatile organic compounds
semi-volatile organic compounds
gas chromatography
Meteorology. Climatology
QC851-999
Arctic
Arctic Ocean
White Sea
East Siberian Sea
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12060767
https://doaj.org/article/16969c7672214aefb2d1550eaeea33fe
Description
Summary:Environmental issues in the Arctic region are of primary importance due to the fragility of the Arctic ecosystem. Mainly persistent organic compounds are monitored in the region by nine stationary laboratories. Information on the volatile (VOC) and semi volatile (SVOC) organic priority pollutants is very limited, especially for the Russian Arctic. Air samples from 16 sites along the Russian Arctic coast from the White Sea to the East Siberian Sea were collected on sorption tubes packed with Tenax, Carbograph, and Carboxen sorbents with different selectivity for a wide range of VOCs and SVOCs in 2020 within the framework of the International Siberian Shelf Study Expedition on the research vessel Akademik Keldysh. Thermal desorption gas chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry with Orbitrap was used for the analysis. Eighty-six VOCs and SVOCs were detected in the air samples at ng/m 3 levels. The number of quantified compounds varied from 26 to 66 per sample. Benzoic acid was the major constituent, followed by BTEX, phenol, chloroform, bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, and carbon tetrachloride. The study allowed for obtaining the first ever data on the presence of 138 priority pollutants in the air of Russian Arctic, whereas the thorough assessment of their possible sources will be the aim of a next investigation.

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