Document Type
Article
Abstract
Environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) are a new class organic pollutant sharing some of the attributes of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). This opinion/short review aims to describe the properties of EPFRs that merit their recognition as an additional and potentially significant source of POPs. EPFRs are ubiquitous in diverse environments because of multiple factors: (1) organic precursors from anthropogenic, biogenic, and other natural emission sources are abundant; multiple mechanisms in PM and soils form (2) EPFRs; and (3) EPFRs are stable and persist for a long time, thereby, accumulate in the environment and potentially transported long range. The hazards of EPFRs arise from their ability to induce oxidative stress and the formation of hazardous byproducts. EPFRs are ultimately deactivated by reactive processes, yielding molecular recombination byproducts that are structurally similar to those classified as POPs. It is plausible that EPFRs may form POPs in vivo in organisms; therefore, they are potential additional sources of exogenous POPs. Understanding the formation of EPFRs and extensive investigation of the pollutants generated from their recombination will add to the growing body of knowledge on their environmental and health hazards.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in Advances in Environmental and Engineering Research, Volume 2, Issue 2, 2021.
Rights
© 2021 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is correctly cited.
APA Citation
Vejerano, E. P., Ahn, J., Latif, J., & amun, M. M. (2021). Environmentally persistent free radicals as sources of pops. Advances in Environmental and Engineering Research, 02(02), 010. https://doi.org/10.21926/aeer.2102010