Cover image for Fatty alcohols : anthropogenic and natural occurrence in the environment
Title:
Fatty alcohols : anthropogenic and natural occurrence in the environment
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
Cambridge, UK : Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008
Physical Description:
xiii, 159 p. : ill. (some col.), maps ; 25 cm.
ISBN:
9780854041527
Subject Term:

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30000010190479 TP248.A5 M82 2008 Open Access Book Book
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33000000000676 TP248.A5 M82 2008 Open Access Book Book
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Summary

Summary

Fatty alcohols occur naturally in most organisms and can also be used in consumer products including detergents and cosmetics and all of these materials make their way to the sea eventually. These long chain alcohols can be used as biomarkers due to their distinctive source allocations although they have differential degradation rates across the range of chain lengths. Concern has been raised about their inputs from anthropogenic uses and this book seeks to set out the natural and industrial synthetic pathways, sources, signatures, concentrations in the environment, toxicity and eco-toxicity before summarising their impact. Their large scale synthesis for industrial uses puts them in the 'High Production Volume' category and they will need to be addressed in REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) - a new European legislation for chemicals and substances. There is no other book that considers the fatty alcohols from their production, environmental behaviour and potential toxicity viewpoint. The book, which is also well illustrated, presents for the first time environmental data from many locations around the world and discusses the anthropogenic contributions to these places.


Author Notes

Stephen M Mudge is currently at Bangor University, UK. After nearly six years of investigating radionuclides in the environment at Lancaster University, Stephen Mudge moved to Bangor University and began work on lipid biomarkers in the environment. In the past 20 years he has investigated the sources and dispersal of many contaminants, especially sewage derived materials, in marine and terrestrial environments. In 2003 he started the world's first degree on Environmental Forensics that utilises many of the chemical and statistical approaches developed over the years of investigation. Fatty alcohols have formed part of these analyses and while these compounds may be frequently measured, they are rarely reported. Scott Belanger is a Research Fellow in The Procter & Gamble Company corporate environmental safety organization. His research spans a wide range of topics including understanding the effects of consumer product chemicals in the environment at the levels of the organism to the ecosystem. He has assisted in several efforts to assess the environmental risk of alcohols and alcohol-derived surfactants in recent years frequently working with trade associations, academic partnerships, and the regulatory community on these affairs. Allen Nielsen is a recently retired microbiologist from the Research and Development Department of Sasol North America, Inc. His main focus during his thirty-one year career has been the environmental safety of petrochemical -derived surfactants which are used in consumer and industrial applications. In recent years he was focused on the environmental safety of alcohols and alcohol-derived surfactants.


Table of Contents

Executive Summary
1 Definitions
Names and structures
Physico-Chemical Properties
Solubility vs. chain length
Partitioning (Kow) and sediment associations
Summary
2 Biological Synthesis
Type I Fatty Acid Synthesis
Unsaturated chains
Type II Fatty Acid Synthase
Unsaturated Compounds
Branched chains
Fatty Acid Degradation
Fatty Acyl-CoA Reductase (FAR)
Synthesis from carbohydrates (Copepods)
Summary
3 Occurrence in Biota
Bacteria
Chlorophyll side chain (phytol)
Marine Plants
Terrestrial Plant Waxes
Mosses and other peat forming plants
Marine animals
Insects
Birds
Summary
4 Consumer and Cosmetic Product Uses and Production
Introduction
Detergent Alcohols Manufacture
Oleochemical based alcohols
Oleochemical Fatty Alcohols
Petrochemical based alcohols
Internal Olefins
Conventional OXO Alcohols Based on Internal Olefins
Alcohols based on Ethylene
Ziegler Ethylene Growth Process
Ziegler Alcohols
Modified OXO Alcohols
SHOP (Shell Higher Olefin Process) ?-Olefins
SHOP Internal Olefins and Modified OXO Alcohols
Summary
Detergent Formulations
5 Environmental Transformations
Metabolism of Fatty Alcohols
Natural degradation
Short chain moieties
Long chain moieties
Degradation Rate Constants
Phytol degradation
Effect of chemical associations on transformation rates
"Natural" fatty alcohols in STPs
Anthropogenic fatty alcohols in STPs
Summary
6 Analytical methods
Overview of Methods
Methods for analysis of free fatty alcohols (and ethoxylates)
Environmental Samples
Inter-laboratory comparisons
Summary
7 Environmental Concentrations
The Marine Environment
Victoria Harbour, BC - Estuarine Surface Sediments
Concepcíon Bay, Chile and San Vicente Bay, Chile
Rio de Janeiro - surface sediments in a contaminated bay
Ria Formosa lagoon - surface sediments
Ria Formosa lagoon - suspended and settled sediments
Ria Formosa lagoon - shallow core from intertidal sediments
Eastern North Atlantic
San Miguel Gap, California - long marine core
Rio Grande Rise (516F of leg 72 ODP), Brazil
Falkland Plateau (511 of leg 71 ODP), S. Atlantic
Guatemalan Basin (Legs 66 & 67 ODP), Central America
Continental slope, SW of Taiwan
East China Sea, N of Taiwan
The Terrestrial Environment
Pasture land, Southern Australia
Prairie Zone soils, Alberta, Canada
UK Studies
Conwy Estuary - Estuarine Core (50 cm)
Mawddach Estuary - surface sediments
The Menai Strait - surface sediments
Loch Riddon, Scotland - mid-length marine core
Clyde Sea, Scotland - surface sediments
Loe Pool, Cornwall - coastal lake
Bolton Fell Moss, Cumbria - mire
Lochnagar, Scotland - mountain lake
Loch Eil, Scotland - a marine core and Loch Lochy, Scotland - a freshwater core
Summary
8 Using Fatty Alcohols as Biomarkers
Stable Isotopes
13C Composition
2H Composition
Bacterial Biomass
Marine Fauna
Terrestrial Plants
Photosynthetic Activity
9 Multivariate Statistics
Chemometric methods of use with fatty alcohols
PCA
PLS
10 Environmental and Human Safety Aspects of Fatty Alcohols
Physical Chemistry Relevant to Safety Assessments
OECD SIAR
Summary
Physical-Chemical Overview from the OECD SIAR
Conclusions for Characterizing the OECD Long Chain Alcohols Category
Human Health and Risk
Uses and Products
Hazards for Human Health
Exposure Characterization for Human Health
Risk Characterization for Human Health
Environmental Risk
Pathways of Environmental Exposure
Environmental Effects
Measurements of Exposure for the Purpose of Environmental Risk Assessment
Risk Characterization in the Environment
Summary
References
11 The Future for Fatty Alcohols