Since the late 1980s, certain pollutants such as phthalic acid esters (PAE) , nonylphenols and bisphenol-A(BPA)have been detected in lakes, rivers and at ocean.However, it is not clear how and why these chemicals exist in environmental water. Beach sand seawater taken from the coastlines of Korea and Japan were investigated to determine the causes of global chemical contamination from polystyrene (PS). All samples were found to contain styrene monomer(SM), styrene dimer(SD),styrene trimer(ST) with a concentration distribution of styrene analogues in the order of ST>SD>SM.  The concentrations of SM,SD and ST in sand samples from the shorelines were consistently greater than the those in seawater samples from the same site.

Regional distribution of styrene oligomer generated from polystyrene degradation along the coastlines of  Korea and Japan

248th National Meeting (2014)

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