Page 94 - Partition & Adsorption of Organic Contaminants in Environmental Systems
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BIOCONCENTRATION OF ORGANIC CONTAMINANTS 85
be obtained from the K tw of the compound and the lipid content of the biotic
species as
(5.23)
BCF =fK tw
where f is the lipid fraction of a biotic species (on the wet-weight basis) and
K tw is the triolein–water partition coefficient of the compound. For practical
purposes, K tw may be replaced by K ow, as rationalized before. By Eq. (5.23),
one estimates the concentration of a relatively insoluble contaminant in a
biotic species as
[] = [] f K tw i, (5.24)
C i bio
C i w
where [C i] bio is the equilibrium concentration of contaminant i with whole
biotic species, [C i] w the corresponding concentration in water, and K tw,i (or
K ow,i) the K tw (or K ow) for contaminant i. Similar calculations can be extended
to all other contaminants by use of Eq. (5.24) to obtain individual contami-
nant concentrations or their sum with a given biotic species.
