What are PBDEs

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Anticipatory Environmental Research at UC
Berkeley James R. Hunt Professor of Civil and
Environmental Engineering Co-Director, Berkeley
Water Center hunt_at_ce.berkeley.edu Outline Berke
ley Water Center Recent Berkeley/LBNL
contributions Trends and potential
collaborations
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Berkeley Water Center James R. Hunt
Co-Director, Civil and Environmental
Engineering David Sunding Co-Director,
Agricultural and Resource Economics Susan
Hubbard Associate Director, Earth Sciences,
LBNL Internal Support College of
Engineering College of Natural Resources Center
for Information Technology Research in the
Interest of Society Vice Chancellor for
Research Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
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Example Providing safe water and sanitation in
developing countries with faculty participation
from Engineering Public Health
Business Energy and Resources Group
BWC Nelson, UCB
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Example Water resources data management is
approaching a crisis, with alternatives being
demonstrated in in the Russian River watershed
Internet Data Archives
Legacy Sources
BWC UCB, LBNL, Microsoft
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Example California water resource management is
also challenged by legal, institutional, and
hydrologic complexity with increasing
uncertainty. We are exploring alternative
regulatory approaches.
BWC Sunding, UCB
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Example 1 Pharmaceuticals in wastewater
effluents are present at ecologically
significant concentrations
Riverside, CA
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Hormones in Effluents
Fish Feminization
Huang and Sedlak, UCB (2001)
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Other Effluent-Dominated Systems

• Western United States (Platte, Trinity (TX),
  Boulder Creek)
• Soil aquifer treatment systems (LosAngeles,
  Phoenix, Californias Central Valley)
• Rhine River and tributaries
• England (Thames, Lee, Aire-Calder)

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Science Issues

• Are there ecotoxicological effects of compounds
  other than steroid estrogens?
• Are there risks to human health from mixtures of
  pharmaceuticals at sub-therapeutic doses?
• Do transformation products pose risks?
• Will the green chemistry approach anticipate
  impacts?

Sedlak, UCB
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Example 2 Persistence and Degradation of PBDEs
used as Flame Retardants

• 209 different congeners
• Extremely hydrophobic (log Kow from 7 to 10)
• low vapor pressures
• Extremely low water solubility (ltlt ng/L)
• Used in consumer products at up to 20 by weight

Alvarez-Cohen and Robrock, UCB
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Penta 99 Concentrations in dust
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PBDEs look like thyroid hormones
Thyroid hormone Thyroxine
Penta-BDE 99
Penta and octa-BDE mixtures were banned in 2004
in Europe and CA after 30 years of use Deca-BDE
still used today because its considered safe and
inert
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Anaerobic Organisms can Debrominate PBDEs into
More Toxic Congeners
Desulfitobacterium
D. restrictus
Dehalococcoides
S. multivorans
Deca Nona Octa Hepta Hexa Penta Tetra Tri Di Mono
Deca Nona Octa Hepta Hexa Penta Tetra Tri Di Mono
Deca Nona Octa Hepta Hexa Penta Tetra Tri Di Mono
Deca Nona Octa Hepta Hexa Penta Tetra Tri Di Mono
Robrock and Alvarez-Cohen, UCB
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Example 3 Monterey, California wastewater reuse
for irrigated agriculture and stopping seawater
intrusion
Nelson and Williams, UCB
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Filter pilot plant to quantify particle and
pathogen removal at higher loading rates
Nelson and Williams, UCB
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Demonstrating MS2 virus, E.coli bacteria and
particle removal compared with clean bed
filtration model
Particles
E.coli
MS2
Open Closed
Modified from Williams et al. (2007) Water
Research
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Ongoing research simulating flow over complex
terrain with application to chemical spills

• Atmospheric boundary layer simulations
• Grid resolution
• Land surface forcing
• Turbulence modeling
• Valley winds dynamics
• Riviera Valley
• Owens Valley, CA

Riviera Valley, Switzerland
Large-eddy simulations
Along-valley wind (m/s)
Chow, UCB
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Urban environments have complex flows, and models
are needed for plume prediction and inversion

• Plume splitting, corner eddies
• Max building height 120m
• Sheltering, updrafts
• Model error, assumptions

Velocity vectors and horizontal wind speed
contours
Chow, UCB
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Composite plume predictions for 90 confidence
intervals based on limited sensor data
HIGH
LOW
Chow, UCB
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Flow Over Complex Terrain Passive Scalar vs.
Dense Gas
Ground Level Concentration (kg/m3)

• Density effects produce greater downwind spread
  and lateral spread
• Application to chemical spills, CO2, and
  cryogenic fuels (CH4, H2)

Passive Scalar
Dense Gas
Chow, UCB and LBNL
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Scalar transport - Mt. Tsukuba, Japan
Mean wind direction
Mean wind direction
Large-eddy simulations
Observations
Takenobu Michioka (CRIEPI ) and Chow (UCB), 2008
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• The demands of a Green Chemistry initiative are
  drivers for future research and development
  initially with a focus on California
• Biomonitoring of human blood and urine for
  chemicals (2006 California Senate Bill 1379)
• Chemical manufacturers can be asked to develop
  methods for quantifying chemicals in
  environmental samples (2006 California Assembly
  Bill 289)
• UC Berkeley and LBNL are active participants and
  have expertise in
• analytical methods for environmental samples
• Measuring and modeling environmental transport
  processes in air, water, and soil
• human and ecosystem exposures