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Review
. 2024 Mar 1;12(3):195.
doi: 10.3390/toxics12030195.

A Review of the Distribution and Health Effect of Organophosphorus Flame Retardants in Indoor Environments

Xingwei Song  1 , Sheng Zhu  2 , Ling Hu  1 , Xiaojia Chen  3   4 , Jiaqi Zhang  5 , Yi Liu  6 , Qingwei Bu  7 , Yuning Ma  8
Affiliations
Review

A Review of the Distribution and Health Effect of Organophosphorus Flame Retardants in Indoor Environments

Xingwei Song et al. Toxics. .

Abstract

As a replacement for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) have been widely used and detected in different indoor environments all over the world. This paper comprehensively describes the concentration levels and distribution information of 11 kinds of OPFRs from 33 indoor dust and 10 air environments, from which TBOEP, TCIPP, and TDCIPP were observed to have higher concentrations in indoor environments. The ΣOPFRs displayed higher concentrations in indoor dust than in indoor air due to the higher molecular weight and vapor pressure of ΣOPFRs in building decoration materials, specifically for TCIPP and TDCIPP compounds. Considering that it is inevitable that people will be exposed to these chemicals in the indoor environments in which they work and live, we estimated their potential health risks through three human exposure pathways and found that the ingestion exposure to TBOEP for toddlers in Japan may reach up to 1270.80 ng/kg/day, which comprises a significant pathway compared to dermal contact and indoor air inhalation. Specifically, the combined total exposure to OPFRs by air inhalation, dust ingestion, and dermal contact was generally below the RfD values for both adults and toddlers, with a few notable higher exposures of some typical OPFRs.

Keywords: human exposure; indoor environment; organophosphorus flame retardants; risk assessment.

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Conflict of interest statement

There was no conflict of interest in this research.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A schematic presentation of this review on OPFRs in indoor environments.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The spatial distributions of the concentrations of selected OPFRs in indoor dust (ng/g) and the locations of the six indoor air testing sites. The concentration unit is ng/m3, and the data are all logarithmically processed. “/” represents data not measured in the relevant study.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Composition profiles of OPFRs in indoor dust collected from different countries with various sampling numbers.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Composition profiles of OPFRs in indoor air collected from different countries with various sampling numbers.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The principal component plot of PFRs in indoor dust environments.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation of China (Project No. 41807354), State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Formation and Prevention of Urban Air Pollution Complex (No. 2021080543), and Shanghai Sailing Program (No. 23YF1428200).