ИСТИНА

Arctic environment has been shown to be very sensitive to changes in the chemical composition of the air–snow interface and climate changing in general [1,2]. The reports published by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) have summarized a large dataset regarding emerging contaminants, their terrestrial and temporal distributions, and their environmental effects. Despite accumulation of considerable amount of data any new information on the environmental situation in Arctic is very valuable. The present study throws light upon organic contaminants in the snow of the Franz Joseph Land. The samples were collected within the Franz Joseph Land during 2017 research expedition. All snow samples were stored freezed during the expedition. The sample preparation procedure involved melting of the snow samples under room temperature followed by dichloromethane extraction according to US EPA 8270 method. Field blank was subjected to the same procedure. The extracts were combined and analysed using gas chromatography – high resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS) with electron ionization (EI). All experiments were carried out using Pegasus GC-HRT instrument (LECO, USA). The identification of organic compounds was made using mass spectral library NIST14. Besides, all identification results were checked manually for avoiding the false-positive results. Snow samples from Franz Joseph Land were relatively pure considering anthropogenic pollutants. The major organic constituents involve natural organic compounds (terpenes and terpenoids), some hydrocarbons (mainly alkanes and napthenes), phthalates, and few widely used industrial products. The highest number of detected compounds was related to different oxygenated molecules, which could not be exactly classified. Though some of them were categorized as oxygenated alkanes with DBE=0, previously found in Novaya Zemlya Archipelago environment. Only several US EPA priority pollutants were identified and quantified (phthalates). Hydrocarbons by themselves could appear in the Arctic due to long distance air transfer or due to increased number of cargo ships using Northern sea route. Phthalates are present almost in all environmental samples nowadays due to their wide use in plastics. Though they may not be categorized as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), detection of phthalates even in such remote areas as Arctic makes them of priority control. Despite the big amount of data related to the presence of chlorinated hydrocarbons, pesticides, fire retardants and other POPs in Arctic environment, which are usually used as environmental indicators, we have detected only one example of such compounds – tri(2-chloroethyl) phosphate. An interesting class of compounds detected in all samples corresponded to fatty acid amides, supporting our previous data obtained during study of Novaya Zemlya, where fatty amides were also found. Their origin may involve humic matter, biomass burning or some anthropogenic sources. An unexpected class of pollutants detected in snow samples was presented by N,N-dimethylcyclohexylamine and N,N-dimethylbenzylamine. Having a very large variety of industrial applications, these compounds were not a priori supposed to be met in the area of low household activity.