Phthalates in indoor air and dust from Hanoi, Vietnam: distriution and human exposure

Phthalates are a group of chemicals used as plasticizer additives in hundreds of products. Therefore, they were found in many different environmental and human matrices such as water, soil, sludge, air, dust, blood, and urine. This paper presents the determination method, occurrence and distribution of phthalates in indoor dust and indoor air samples collected in Hanoi, Vietnam. The optimal method has met the requirement to accurately identify phthalates in environmental samples. The highest concentrations of phthalates were measured in indoor dust samples and air collected at hair salons. The correlation of phthalates concentrations between indoor air and dust collected at hair salons were also higher than that in other micro-environments. Among the studied phthalates, di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) was found at the highest concentrations in both dust and air samples. The exposure doses to phthalates through inhalation were ten times higher than other pathways such as dust ingestion. In general, the risk of human exposure doses to phthalates decreases with increasing ages.