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Organotin Compounds, Including Butyltins and Octyltins, in House Dust from Albany, New York, USA

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Abstract

Organotin compounds (OTs) have been used in a wide variety of consumer products. Despite this, very few studies have reported the occurrence of OTs in house dust or exposure of humans to OTs through the ingestion of house dust. In the present study, concentrations of monobutyltin (MBT), dibutyltin (DBT), tributyltin (TBT), monooctyltin (MOT), dioctyltin (DOT), trioctyltin (TOT), diphenyltin (DPT), and triphenyltin (TPT) were measured in dust collected from 24 houses in Albany, New York, USA. In addition, a few household products, such as wallpaper, floor tile, vinyl window blinds, and handbags were analyzed for the presence of OTs. Organotins were found in all of the house dust samples analyzed, and total OT concentrations varied from 390 to 28,000 ng/g (mean ± SD: 6700 ± 6200; median: 5000). Relative abundances of OTs in house dust were in the order MBT >MOT >DBT >DOT >TBT. TOT, DPT, and TPT were not found in any of the samples at concentrations above their corresponding detection limits. MBT accounted for, on average, 51% of the total OT concentrations. Mean concentrations of total OTs found in house dust samples from our study were two to five times higher than concentrations that have been reported for dust samples from several European countries. Calculations indicate that dust ingestion by children account for, on average, 15–18% of the tolerable daily intake proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO). The estimated rates of OT intake by children via dust ingestion were, on average, eightfold higher than the intake rates calculated for adults. Household products, such as wallpaper, contained total OT concentrations as high as 780,000 ng/g.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Ms. Keiko Higaki for assistance with chemical analysis. This research was supported in part by the waste management research grants (K2121 and K2129) from the Ministry of the Environment, Japan, the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) (No. 20221003) from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and Global COE Program from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and in part by a grant from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA) on Expanding New York State Public Health Laboratory Capability and Capacity to Conduct Biomonitoring (1U38EH000464-01) to Wadsworth Center.

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  1. New York State Department of Health, and Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Wadsworth Center, State University of New York at Albany, Empire State Plaza, PO Box 509, Albany, NY, 12201-0509, USA

    Kurunthachalam Kannan

  2. Center for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES), Ehime University, Bunkyo-cho 2-5, Matsuyama, 790-8577, Japan

    Shin Takahashi, Naohiro Fujiwara, Hazuki Mizukawa & Shinsuke Tanabe

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  1. Kurunthachalam Kannan
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  2. Shin Takahashi
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  3. Naohiro Fujiwara
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  4. Hazuki Mizukawa
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  5. Shinsuke Tanabe
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Correspondence to Kurunthachalam Kannan.

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Kannan, K., Takahashi, S., Fujiwara, N. et al. Organotin Compounds, Including Butyltins and Octyltins, in House Dust from Albany, New York, USA. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 58, 901–907 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00244-010-9513-6

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