YounSeok Kang

To prevent the invasion of alien species, the International Maritime Organization and the United States Costal Guard require that a ballast water management system (BWMS) be installed on ships to treat the ballast water before discharging it. BWMS technologies use active substances, which create disinfection by-products (DBPs) during ballast water treatment. This study compared the characteristics of DBPs generated in the treatment of commercial glucose with those of algal organic matter (AOM) derived from field-collected phytoplankton using NaOCl as the active substance. During the treatment of AOM, a greater variety and higher concentrations of DBPs were generated than for glucose. For AOM in freshwater, bromoform and dibromoacetic acid were dominant because of the bromine ions present in the phytoplankton. During the treatment of glucose, the ratio of the predicted environmental concentration to the predicted no-effect concentration of dibromoacetonitrile and chloropicrin exceeded 1, indicating a potential environmental risk. Whole effluent toxicity (WET) testing showed that the chronic toxicity of phytoplankton and the total DBP concentration were highest in marine water with AOM. In addition, the results of WET testing suggested that the concentrations of haloacetic acids (HAAs) and haloacetonitriles (HANs) were important indicators for the evaluation of environmental risk. Therefore, to evaluate the risk of DBPs in international ports where phytoplankton outbreaks frequently occur, it is important to monitor not only the total DBP concentration but also the total HAA and HAN concentrations.

Background and Objectives: Epidemiological studies have inconsistently shown an association between dioxin and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and cancer. This study aims to examine the effects of blood concentration of dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (DL-PCBs) and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/DFs) on T2DM and thyroid cancer. Methods: We conducted a nested case–control study within the Korean cancer prevention study-II (KCPS-II) consisting of 15 thyroid cancer cases, 30 T2DM cases, and 55 controls. A total of 500 samples were used in 100 pooling samples. An average value of a pooled sample was calculated weighted by the blood volume of each sample. Results: The study population included 100 participants from the KCPS-II (median (IQR) baseline age, 54.06 [21.04] years; 48 women). The toxic equivalents of PCDD/DFs showed a significant positive association with T2DM and thyroid cancer, after adjustments for potential confounders (T2DM ORs = 1.23; 95% CI = 1.05–1.43; thyroid cancer ORs = 1.34; 95% CI = 1.12–1.61). Conclusion: In this study, both T2DM and thyroid cancer were associated with the blood concentrations of PCDD/DFs. The association between PCDD/DFs and T2D was found among women but not among men. Our findings suggest that further biochemical in vivo research and epidemiologic studies are needed to clarify the association between dioxins concentrations and diseases.

Online headspace-SIFT/MS was evaluated by comparing performance with headspace-GC/MS for 20 types of VOCs. Performance evaluation was determined by comparing the linearity of the calibration curve, the detection limits, and the quantitation limits. The accuracy and precision of the two analytical methods were also compared. Online HSS-SIFT/MS possessed quantification almost equal to HSS-GC/MS. In the case of analysis accuracy and precision, inaccuracies were observed at low concentrations. However, overall, online HSS-SIFT/MS presented sufficient accuracy to determine the concentrations for that defines chemical accidents.