Review of physicochemical behaviors, ecological damage and pollution control of organic chemicals spilled in marine transportation accidents

During the last decades, there have been considerable developments in the maritime transport of hazardous materials.This leads to a growing risk of accidental spills of chemicals into the sea, which threatens the marine ecological security.However, historical incidents are first hand sources of information on how to effectively response to marine chemical incidents in future.Therefore, according to the statistics of information about 29 typical maritime cases, we review the physicochemical behaviors, ecological damage and pollution control measures of 40 organic chemicals after being spilled at sea.The main conclusions are as follows:(i) All chemicals are classified into 10 categories based on their physical behavior in contact with seawater, with the exception of toluene diisocyanate due to its reaction with water.Among them, the group of sinkers (S) is the largest one containing 14 species, having a greater exposure risk to marine benthos after leakage.There are 27 chemicals with the hazards of flammable and/or explosive and 21 with corrosive feature.(ii) Using a combination of criteria, i.e., bioaccumulation, biodegradation, acute toxicity and/or chronic toxicity as a tool for assessing the ecological hazard, a list of priority chemicals containing 16 compounds including lindane and atrazine are proposed.(iii) Marine chronic toxicity data is lacking for most of the chemicals, and more research will be needed to provide scientific basis for emergency response decision-making.(iv)The pollution control techniques to accidental spills at sea mainly include stopping or reducing release/loss, salvaging organic chemicals and controlled releasing of source.More attention should be paid to study ecological remediation technologies in polluted area due to spills.