Occurrence of Congener Specific Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Soils from Roadside Agricultural Fields

Twenty eight polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) congeners including twelve dioxin-like PCBs were measured in soils from roadside agricultural lands of National Capital Region (NCR), India. The concentration of ΣPCBs ranged between <0.01-38.32 ng g-1 (dw) with the mean of 8.40±1.27 ng g-1 (dw), where, Σ12dl-PCBs ranged between <0.01- 13.59 ng g-1 (dw) and their average value was 2.86±0.46 ng g-1 (dw). Group homolog of total 28 PCBs was dominated by tetra-chlorinated biphenyls (4-CBs) and hexa-chlorinated biphenyls (6-CBs) which accounted for 56% and 23.6%, respectively. Toxic equivalent (TEQ) of dl-PCBs was between <0.01-140.24 pg WHO2005-TEQ g-1 (dw) with a mean of 31.86±5.25 pg WHO2005-TEQ g-1 (dw). PCBs contaminations in studied soils of agricultural areas were lower than soil quality guideline values