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Industrial Production of Organophosphate Flame Retardants (OPFRs): Big Knowledge Gaps Need to Be Filled?

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Abstract

Since the phase-out of traditional halogenated flame retardants (HFRs), interests of research are gradually being shifted to organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs), and this can be reflected by the increasing number of publications on OPFRs year by year. Here, an extensive survey is conducted in an attempt to generate a list of OPFRs that are being produced in factories, and to investigate the annual production volume (APV). This survey suggests that at least n = 56 OPFR monomers and n = 62 OPFR mixtures are being currently produced in 367 factories around the world, and 201 out of them are in Mainland China. APV of OPFRs was estimated as 598,422 metric tons, and this number could be underestimated due to the limitation of available information. We also notice that current researches are confined to a limited number of OPFRs, especially for OP esters (OPEs), and other OPFRs with different structures from OPEs has been rarely studied. Based on all the collected datasets, we provide five recommendations for how to proceed with future research to more comprehensively understand the currently-produced OPFRs in the environment.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 21976088), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 30919011101).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, People’s Republic of China

    Jianan Huang, Langjie Ye & Guanyong Su

  2. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Mingliang Fang

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  1. Jianan Huang
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Huang, J., Ye, L., Fang, M. et al. Industrial Production of Organophosphate Flame Retardants (OPFRs): Big Knowledge Gaps Need to Be Filled?. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 108, 809–818 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-021-03454-7

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