Household dust organic pollution across Spain: exposure and risk assessment

Indoor dust concentrations of fifty-nine organic pollutants belonging to several chemical families (i.e., plasticizers, organochlorinated and organophosphorus pesticides (OCPs, OPPs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and nicotine) were measured in different locations across the Spanish territory, namely Barcelona, Algeciras, Granada, Madrid, Valladolid, and Salamanca. Forty-six pollutants were detected in the 60 samples analyzed. This study compares indoor dust contamination across samples from six cities to evaluate whether pollution patterns and associated risks differ among regions. A chemometric approach, consisting first of applying principal component analysis (PCA) and then hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), was used on the resulting dataset, distributing the samples into four clusters according to their chemical similarity and allowing a preliminary exploration of pollution patterns and sources. While larger cities such as Madrid and Barcelona showed a common contamination pattern related to PAHs from traffic emissions (median values of ~1000 ng g −1 ) and plasticizers (median values >2000 μg g −1 ), cities such as Granada, Valladolid and Salamanca showed relevant levels of DDT (median values near 3000 ng g −1 in Granada) and other pesticides linked to agricultural activities (median values of ~200 ng g −1 for chlorpyrifos in Valladolid and Salamanca); Algeciras showed a mixed petrogenic–pyrogenic PAH pattern associated with nearby petrochemical and stainless-steel industries (median of 1101.4 ng g −1 for total PAHs). Based on contaminant clustering, human risk assessment was evaluated to examine theoretical cancer and non-cancer risks across age groups. HCA was found to be a useful proxy to depict different exposure scenarios and risks within the same study area. • First multi-province analysis of Spanish indoor dust is reported. • 46 pollutants belonging to 9 chemical groups were detected in 60 dust samples. • PCA and HCA separated dataset into four clusters. • Risk assessment was performed basing on HCA clustering. • High cancer and non-cancer risks were found for PAHs, nicotine, DEHP and TBOEP.