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Shu et al. 2023 - organotins in China port seafood

Shu et al. measured six organotin compounds in edible marine organisms from seas adjacent to eastern China ports: tributyltin (TBT), dibutyltin (DBT), monobutyltin (MBT), triphenyltin (TPhT), diphenyltin (DPhT), and monophenyltin (MPhT). The analytes are tin-organic species reported as ng Sn g-1 on dry-weight or wet-weight bases; they are not total tin and not inorganic tin. The local PDF includes main-text summary ranges but not the supplemental tables that hold species-level concentration records.

Key numbers

The abstract and Results section report total organotin sums (sum OTCs) in marine organisms from the eastern ports of China:

ScopeTotal organotins
Overall marine organisms0.81-2900 ng Sn g-1 dw; mean 130 ng Sn g-1 dw
Phenyltin contribution51%-87% of sum OTCs
Bohai Bay port group (S1-S4)49-81 ng Sn g-1 dw
Yangtze Estuary port group (S5-S7)49-65 ng Sn g-1 dw
Southeast Coast port group (S8-S9)170-460 ng Sn g-1 dw
S9 port group detailBTs 34 ng Sn g-1 dw; PhTs 420 ng Sn g-1 dw
Other ports comparisonBTs 10-25 ng Sn g-1 dw; PhTs 29-140 ng Sn g-1 dw

The Results section reports seafood-group ranges and means in ng Sn g-1 dw:

Seafood groupTotal organotins
Mollusks13-2900; mean 200
Crustaceans0.81-960; mean 100
Fish3.9-420; mean 72

The source states that mollusks accumulated more OTCs than fish (p<0.05), while crustaceans and fish did not differ significantly (p>0.05). Within the three groups, Thais clavigera, Portunus tribuberculatus, and Pseudosciaena crocea showed higher OTC concentrations for mollusks, crustaceans, and fish, respectively; the extracted main text does not include their species-level numeric values.

For butyltins on a wet-weight basis, the source compares its current seafood data with older reports and states that BTs in the present study were ND-38.64 ng Sn g-1 ww, with mean 3.69 ng Sn g-1 ww.

The health-risk section reports risk quotients (RQ) from seafood consumption:

Population / scopeRQ
All marine organisms0.00037-2.35
Marine organisms with RQ > 11.5%
Children0.00089-2.35
Adolescents0.00086-1.52
Adults0.00037-0.81
Bohai Bay and Yangtze Estuary seafoodall <1
Southeast Coast seafood2 species, Ruditapes philippinarum and Oratosquilla oratoria, and 5.9% of seafood had RQ > 1

For Southeast Coast seafood, TPhT was the leading contributor to the risk rating (72.4%), followed by TBT (12.2%), DPhT (7.9%), and MBT (7.2%). The corresponding contributions to total OTC residues were TPhT 44%, TBT 4.3%, DPhT 33%, and MBT 15%.

Methods (brief)

Samples were collected from nine port areas along the eastern China coast between July 2020 and May 2021. Mollusks were obtained from tidal sediments, while fish and crustaceans were purchased from local seafood markets; muscle tissues were dissected, homogenized, freeze-dried, ground, and stored at -20°C. Approximately 1 g freeze-dried sample was extracted overnight with 10 mL acetic-acid/methanol (1:9, v/v) containing 0.03% (w/w) tropolone, sonicated, cleaned with PSA, derivatized with sodium tetraethylborate, and analyzed by GC-MS/MS (Agilent 8890-7000D) on an HP-5-MS column. OTCs were calculated against internal standard TPrT; all samples were analyzed in triplicate, with blanks and standards every 15 samples.

Implications

This source is direct seafood occurrence evidence for organotin compounds in mollusks, crustaceans, and fish from eastern China port regions. It is especially useful because the dominant residues were phenyltins rather than historical butyltins, and because the risk section identifies Southeast Coast seafood as the higher-risk subset. Downstream extraction should keep TBT, DBT, MBT, TPhT, DPhT, MPhT, total butyltins, total phenyltins, and total organotins distinct; these values should route to organotin context and not be pooled with total Sn or inorganic tin values.

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Verification notes

  • Identity checks before writing found no existing source page for DOI 10.1016/j.rsma.2023.102929, raw handle MFK_characteristics-sources-and-health-risks-of-organotin, or cite key shu2023-china-port-seafood-organotins.
  • All Key numbers were rechecked against /tmp/hmi-seaweed-016.txt, extracted with pdftotext -layout. The main article text, methods, results, and figure captions were extractable.
  • Supplemental Tables S1-S11 are referenced but not embedded in the local PDF; species-level sample counts and species-level Table S7 concentrations are therefore marked as not reported in extracted text rather than reconstructed.
  • Units and bases are preserved as ng Sn g-1 dw, ng Sn g-1 ww, and RQ; no unit conversion was performed.
  • Speciation check: this page records organotin species (TBT, DBT, MBT, TPhT, DPhT, MPhT) and compound-class sums. metals: [Sn] is only the existing element-level routing convention; organotins are not treated as total tin or inorganic tin.
  • Brand firewall: the paper reports port regions, organism groups, and species; no seafood brands are attached to contaminant values.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

CommitDateDescription
4039d202026-06-10scope: broaden ingest to the full upstream+downstream literature (marine, atmospheric, attribution, exposure, toxicology) — inclusion is the default