Distributions and compositions of old and emerging flame retardants in the rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil in an e-waste contaminated area of South China

•Most flame retardants were enriched in rhizosphere soils compared to bulk soils.•Rhizosphere effects were more significant for NBFRs than for PBDEs.•PBDEs were significantly correlated with the total organic carbon in soils.•Result suggested that PBDEs have not been replaced by other BFRs in the e-waste.

We investigated rhizosphere effects on the distributions and compositions of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), novel brominated flame retardants (NBFRs), and dechlorane plus (DPs) in rhizosphere soils (RS) and non-rhizosphere soils (NRS) in an e-waste recycling area in South China. The concentrations of PBDEs, NBFRs, and DPs ranged from 13.9 to 351, 11.6 to 70.8, and 0.64 to 8.74 ng g−1 in RS and 7.56 to 127, 8.98 to 144, and 0.38 to 8.45 ng g−1 in NRS, respectively. BDE-209 and DBDPE were the dominant congeners of PBDEs and NBFRs, respectively. PBDEs, NBFRs, and DPs were more enriched in RS than NRS in most vegetables species. Further analysis suggested that the differentiation of the rhizosphere effect on halogenated flame retardants (HFRs) was not solely controlled by the octanol-water coefficients. This difference was also reflected by the correlations between total organic carbon (TOC) and PBDEs, NBFRs, or DPs, which indicated that organic carbon was a more pivotal controlling factor for PBDEs and DPs than for NBFRs in soil. We also found significant positive correlations between PBDEs and their replacement products, which indicated a similar emission pattern and environmental behaviour.