Dioxins generalized structures

FIGURE 18.1. Generalized structures of PCBs, dioxins, and fiirans. 

Figure 3.4 General structures for chlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans, together with the most toxic dioxin congener TCDD.

Dioxins are a particular group of chlorinated organic molecules which have been associated with pulp and paper production and are a concern because of their extreme toxicity. There are two groups of molecular types which fall into the general category referred to as dioxins. These are the polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs) and the polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs). The structures of these molecules are shown in Figure 10.4. 

To better understand the structure and the inner workings of an environmental laboratory, we need to familiarize ourselves with laboratory functional groups and their responsibilities. Figure 4.2 shows an example of a typical full service environmental laboratory organization chart. A full service laboratory has the capabilities to perform analysis for common environmental contaminants, such as VOCs and SVOCs (including petroleum fuels and their constituents, pesticides, herbicides, and PCBs), trace elements (metals), and general chemistry parameters. Analysis of dioxins/furans, explosives, radiochemistry parameters, and analysis of contaminants in air are not considered routine, and are performed at specialized laboratories. 

Although this public health statement will focus on CDDs, it is important to note that CDDs are found in the environment together with other structurally related chlorinated chemicals, such as chlorinated dibenzofurans (CDFs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Therefore, people are generally exposed to mixtures of CDDs and other classes of toxicologically and structurally similar compounds. 2,3,7,8-TCDD is one of the most toxic and extensively studied of the CDDs and serves as a prototype for the toxicologically relevant or dioxin-like CDDs. Based on results from animal studies, scientists have learned that they can express the toxicity of dioxin-like CDDs as a fraction of the toxicity attributed to 2,3,7,8-TCDD. For example, the toxicity of dioxin-like CDDs can be half or one tenth or any fraction of that of 2,3,7,8-TCDD. Scientists call that fraction a Toxic Equivalent Factor (TEF). More information on TEFs can be found in Section 2.5. 

Dioxins and furans are planar tricyclic compounds that have very similar chemical structures and properties. They may contain between 1 and 8 chlorine atoms dioxins have 75 possible positional isomers and furans have 135 positional isomers. They are generally highly insoluble in water, lipophilic and very persistent. Neither dioxins nor furans are... 

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