Chloroform in the environment: occurrence, sources, sinks and effects Review Article

The chloroform flux through the environment is apparently constant at some 660±220 Gg yr−1 (±1σ) and about 90% of the emissions are natural in origin: the largest single source being in offshore sea water (contributing 360±90 Gg yr−1), with soil processes the next most important (220±100 Gg yr−1). Other natural sources, mainly volcanic and geological, account for less than 20 Gg yr−1. The non-natural sources total 66±23 Gg yr−1 and are much better characterised than the natural sources. They are predominantly the result of using strong oxidising agent on organic material in the presence of chloride ion, a direct parallel with the natural processes occurring in soils. Chloroform partitions preferentially into the atmosphere; the equilibrium distribution is greater than 99% and the average global atmospheric concentration has been calculated to be 18.5 pmol mol−1. Atmospheric oxidation, the principal removal process, is approximately in balance with the identified source fluxes. Chloroform is widely dispersed in the aquatic environment (even naturally present in some mineral waters). Consequently, it is also widely dispersed in the tissue of living creatures and in foodstuffs but there is little evidence of bioaccumulation and the quantities in foodstuffs and drinking water are not problematical for human ingestion at the highest concentrations found. Definitive studies have shown that current environmental concentrations of chloroform do not present an ecotoxicological risk, even to fish at the embryonic and larval stages when they are most susceptible. By virtue of the very small amounts that actually become transported to the stratosphere, chloroform does not deplete ozone materially, nor is it a photochemically active volatile organic compound (VOC). It has a global warming potential that is less than that of the photochemically active VOCs and is not classed as a greenhouse gas.