Canadian high arctic ice core records of organophosphate flame retardants and plasticizers

Abstract

Organophosphate esters (OPEs) have been used as flame retardants, plasticizers, and anti-foaming agents over the past several decades. Of particular interest is the long range transport potential of OPEs given their ubiquitous detection in Arctic marine air. Here we report 19 OPE congeners in ice cores drilled on remote icefields and ice caps in the Canadian high Arctic. A multi-decadal temporal profile was constructed in the sectioned ice cores representing a time scale spanning the 1970s to 2014–16. In the Devon Ice Cap record, the annual total OPE (∑OPEs) depositional flux for all of 2014 was 81 μg m⁻², with the profile dominated by triphenylphosphate (TPP, 9.4 μg m⁻²) and tris(2-chloroisopropyl) phosphate (TCPP, 42 μg m⁻²). Here, many OPEs displayed an exponentially increasing depositional flux including TCPP which had a doubling time of 4.1 ± 0.44 years. At the more northern site on Mt. Oxford icefield, the OPE fluxes were lower. Here, the annual ∑OPEs flux in 2016 was 5.3 μg m⁻², dominated by TCPP (1.5 μg m⁻²) but also tris(2-butoxyethyl) phosphate (1.5 μg m⁻² TBOEP). The temporal trend for halogenated OPEs in the Mt. Oxford icefield is bell-shaped, peaking in the mid-2000s. The observation of OPEs in remote Arctic ice cores demonstrates the cryosphere as a repository for these substances, and supports the potential for long-range transport of OPEs, likely associated with aerosol transport.