‘New’ unintentionally produced PCBs in the Arctic Paul W. Bartlett a, b , Elisabeth Isaksson c , Mark H. Hermanson d, * a Fordham University,113 West 60th Street - Rm 813m, New York, NY,10023, USA b John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, 524 West 59th St. Rm. NB 9.63.25, New York, NY,10019, USA c Norwegian Polar Institute, Fram Centre Postboks 6066, NO-9296, Tromsø, Norway d Hermanson & Associates LLC, 2000W. 53rd St., Minneapolis, MN, 55419, USA article info Article history: Received 12 December 2018 Accepted 20 December 2018 Keywords: PCB Polychlorinated biphenyls Arctic PCB5 PCB11 PCB52 Emerging chemicals Assessment abstract Contamination of the Arctic by legacy polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) is well documented, but the more recent discovery of unintentionally produced (UP) PCBs in the Arctic is a cause for concern. Legacy PCBs are covered by existing international conventions and regular monitoring, and the UP congeners are covered by the Stockholm Convention and the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act, but systematic moni- toring and regulatory enforcement of UP-PCBs are lacking. Sources of UP-PCB are by-products of manufacturing (e.g. pigments) and from thermal sources (e.g. incinerators). Estimates of PCB emissions in China now show UP- PCB eclipsing emissions of legacy PCB. Here we discuss the 209 PCB-congener results from surface snow samples from Lomonosovfonna in 2010 and 2014, a glacial site on Svalbard which, in 2014, shows presence of PCB5, PCB11, and an unusually high amount of PCB52. While PCB5 and PCB11 may not be found in legacy PCB mixtures, PCB52 is in many PCB mixtures, yet dominates none of them as in the 2014 snow sample. Is it possible that these congeners are from UP-PCB processes? A search of the literature shows that PCB5, PCB11 and PCB52 are co-synthesis products of pigment pro- duction and that PCB5 and PCB11 are found in flue gas and ash from hazardous waste incineration. Of these, PCB11 has received greater attention in the literature. It has recently been consistently detected in the air, snow, soil and biota in the Arctic, evidence that PCB11 and possibly other UP-PCB congeners are global contaminants. Ice core measurements dating from 1957 to 2009 of PCBs in Svalbard reveal PCB11 presence throughout that period, indicating historic presence in the Arctic before being a focus of research elsewhere. Other UP-PCB need to be more fully investigated, especially from thermal sources. Copyright © 2019, KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 1. Introduction While contamination of the Arctic by legacy intentionally manufactured polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) is well docu- mented [1], the recent discovery of unintentionally produced (UP) PCBs in the environment, including the polar regions is cause for concern. Legacy PCBs are covered by existing international con- ventions and regular monitoring, but while the ‘new’ UP- PCB congeners are covered by Annex C of the Stockholm Convention [2,3] and the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) [4], sys- tematic monitoring and regulatory enforcement are lacking. UPePCBs are generally those 93 congeners that have not been intentionally produced as a commercial mixture, for example as ‘Aroclor’ (by Monsanto in the USA and UK). Frame et al. [5] referred to UP-PCB by this definition as ‘non-Aroclor PCB’. The U.S. Federal Register and Rodenburg et al. [4] used a different definition for non- Aroclor PCB to more broadly include any PCB that is produced as a UP byproduct. This inconsistent use of terminology causes some confusion in the published literature. The former definition by Frame is often preferred because it is difficult to determine whether the origin of a PCB congener such as PCB52 or PCB209 detected in the environment is from UP of PCB or an intentionally generated PCB mixture, unless it is in close proximity to a known source such as pigment manufacture [6] or Aroclor 1270 and 1271 manufacture or use [7]. PCB mixtures were intentionally manufactured for use as dielectric fluids, flame retardants, and other applications due to their advantageous physical properties for these purposes. Manu- facturer trade names for these PCB mixtures include Aroclor, * Corresponding author. E-mail address: markhermanson@me.com (M.H. Hermanson). Peer review under responsibility of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Emerging Contaminants journal homepage: http://www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/ emerging-contaminants/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emcon.2018.12.004 2405-6650/Copyright © 2019, KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Emerging Contaminants 5 (2019) 9e14