56
Table 10: Overview of sPCA levels in selected environmental matrices at the start of this project.
Sample
Sampling location
Sampling date
sPCA concentration
Reference
Air
Spitsbergen,
Norway
1999
9-57 pg/m 3
Borgen et al.
2000
Air
Egbert, Canada
1990
65-924 pg/m 3
Stern and Tomy,
2000
Freshwater biota
different locations,
Norway
not specified
108-3700 ng/g fat
Borgen et al.
2001
Freshwater
particulate matter
different locations,
Germany
not specified
69-860 ng/g dry
weight
Maulshagen et
al., 2003
Marine sediments
different locations,
Canada
not specified
4.52-135 ng/g dry
weight
Tomy et al,
1999a
5.2.2 Chlordane
The pesticide technical chlordane was first synthesised in 1945 by Kearns et. al (1945),
and its commercial production started in 1946 by Vesicol Corporation. About 70’000
tons were manufactured between 1960 and 1988 (Dearth and Hites, 1991). Technical
chlordane was neither manufactured in Europe nor in Japan (Falandysz et al, 1994), but
was commercially available in Germany around 1950. In 1976, the pesticide was
removed from the German market. First restrictions on the use of technical chlordane in
the United States were decided in 1978 by the US Environmental Protection Agency. In
1983, it was only allowed to be used to control underground termites (WHO, 1984).
Technical chlordane is a contact and stomach pesticide (WHO, 1984) with a broad
spectrum. It was mainly used for building protection, ornamental lawns and trees,
drainage ditches, but also to protect crops like com and potatoes (WHO, 1984).
5.2.2.1 Structures
147 compounds could be identified in technical chlordane (Dearth and Hites, 1991).
Main constituents are about 24 % trans-chlordane, 19 % cA-chlordane, 9 % ychlordene,
7 % heptachlor, 7 % trans-nonachlor, 3 % a-chlordene, 3 % [3-chlordene,
1 % chlordane and 19.5 % related compounds including cA-nonachlor (Bussart and
Schor, 1948). Figure 1 shows the structure of the main chlordane congeners and
metabolites.
