文献类型：期刊文献

英文题名：Environmental impacts of polymeric flame retardant breakdown

作者：Liu, Xiaotu[1];Xiong, Yinran[2,3];Gou, Xiao[4];Zhao, Lei[1];Wang, Shanquan[5];Wei, Yanhong[6];Fan, Xiaoyun[1];Yu, Yang[1];Blum, Arlene[7];Jahl, Lydia[7];Diamond, Miriam L.[8];Du, Yiping[2,3];Zhang, Zhuyi[6];Jiang, Shuxin[6];Zhang, Xiaowei[4,9];Wu, Ting[2,3];Chen, Da[1]

机构：[1]Jinan Univ, Coll Environm & Climate, Guangdong Key Lab Environm Pollut & Hlth, Guangzhou, Peoples R China;[2]East China Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Chem & Mol Engn, Shanghai 200237, Peoples R China;[3]East China Univ Sci & Technol, Res Ctr Anal & Test, Shanghai, Peoples R China;[4]Nanjing Univ, Sch Environm, State Key Lab Pollut Control & Resource Reuse, Nanjing, Peoples R China;[5]Sun Yat Sen Univ, Environm Microbi Res Ctr, Sch Environm Sci & Engn, Guangdong Prov Key Lab Environm Pollut Control & R, Guangzhou, Peoples R China;[6]Sun Yat sen Univ, Sch Publ Hlth, Dept Toxicol, Guangdong Prov Key Lab Food Nutr & Hlth, Guangzhou, Peoples R China;[7]Green Sci Policy Inst, Berkeley, CA USA;[8]Univ Toronto, Dept Earth Sci, Toronto, ON, Canada;[9]Yunnan Univ, Sch Ecol & Environm Sci, Kunming, Peoples R China

年份：2025

卷号：8

期号：4

起止页码：432

外文期刊名：NATURE SUSTAINABILITY

收录：;EI(收录号：20251118020764);WOS:【SSCI(收录号:WOS:001436022800001)，SCI-EXPANDED(收录号:WOS:001436022800001)】；

基金：We acknowledge funding support from the National Key Research and Development Programme of China (Grant Nos. 2023YFC3706601 and 2022YFC3202101 to X.L. and X.Z.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42477236 and 22176229 to X.L. and Y.W.) and the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (Grant No. 2024B1515020050 to X.L.). We thank Y. Yang from the Guangdong University of Technology for supporting sample collection, G. Qu from the Research Center of Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for providing synthesized standards of selected TBBPA-related chemicals, and Y. Wu from the Research Center of Analysis and Test of East China University of Science and Technology for NMR characterization of synthesized standards. We also thank L. Birnbaum and R. Fuoco, MPH, for their invaluable comments.

语种：英文

摘要：The industrial use of monomeric halogenated flame retardants has now gradually been phased out due to their toxicity to humans and ecosystems. Polymeric flame retardants are emerging as a 'safe' alternative and so have a high production and consumption volume. However, the environmental fate and toxicity of their derivatives remain unknown, making it difficult to understand and adequately manage the associated risk. We take two tetrabromobisphenol A-based polymers (polyTBBPAs) that are widely used in electronics as model flame-retardant chemicals, and we study their behaviour when they break down in the environment and the toxicity of the derivative products. Our results show that polyTBBPAs break down into smaller products in the environment. Using a non-target screening strategy called BrMiner developed by us, we identified 76 breakdown products of polyTBBPAs with molecular weights in the range 400-2,000 Da. These were detected in environmental samples taken from electronic waste recycling facilities in South China. Toxicity tests with zebrafish embryos showed that when they break down in the environment, polyTBBPAs become more toxic, with mitochondrial dysfunction representing a key toxicity mechanism. This study reveals that there are environmental risks associated with polymeric flame retardants, and therefore, their use should be adequately assessed and regulated.