Uncovering the Relative Importance of Chemical Emissions Arising from the Application as Polymer Additives
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Polymers can act as “Trojan Horse” releasing toxic chemical additives into ecosystems and individual organisms. However, the extent to which additive use contributes to the overall emissions and environmental burdens of multifunctional chemicals remains poorly understood. Here, we use polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and short-, medium-, and long-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs, MCCPs, and LCCPs) as case studies to quantify the contribution of polymer additive use to their global historical emissions and environmental burdens. We revisit their global emission inventories and derive emissions exclusively associated with additive use using the CiP-CAFE model. The total emissions and those arising from additive use are both fed into the BETR-Global model to quantify the environmental burden attributable to additive applications. Additive applications are estimated to account for 38%, 84%, 14%, 26%, and 9% of cumulative global emissions of PCBs, PBDEs, SCCPs, MCCPs, and LCCPs, respectively. Additive and non-additive applications differ substantially in their release characteristics, including emission factors during use and end-of-life management, the mode of emission, temporal delays, and spatial distributions. By 2025 (for PCBs and PBDEs) and 2020 (for SCCPs, MCCPs, and LCCPs), 24%, 92%, 51%, 42%, and 13% of the global environmental burden, respectively, can be attributed to additive use, with disproportionately larger contributions in more dispersive environmental compartments, particularly the atmosphere and seawater, and therefore also in remote polar and oceanic regions.
Source: ChemRxiv
Language: English
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7213981147