Abstract：Dechlorane plus (DP) concentrations and isomer profiles were investigated in surface soil samples from a typical electronic waste dismantling area, Guiyu of Guangdong Province located in the south of China. DP was detected in all twenty-three samples. The DP concentration ranged from 0.308 to 209ng/g. Overall, the concentration levels in the south-east of this region were significantly higher than those in the north-west and varied among the sampling sites within each studied area of this region. The highest and second highest concentration of DP were found in the district where most of the families were engaged in manual disassembly and physical smash of electronic equipments (209ng/g and 46.2ng/g, respectively). The fractional abundance of the anti-DP isomer (fanti) in all samples ranged from 0.444to 0.754 (mean: 0.652±0.064), very close to that of the commercial product (fanti=0.65).The similar fanti values indicated that there was no obviously selective degradation of DP in surface soil. And the different dismantling manners adopted in each studied area had no obvious influence on DP isomer profiles in surface soils.
