What does a high Bioconcentration Factor mean?

A bioconcentration factor greater than 1 is indicative of a hydrophobic or lipophilic chemical. It is an indicator of how probable a chemical is to bioaccumulate. These chemicals have high lipid affinities and will concentrate in tissues with high lipid content instead of in an aqueous environment like the cytosol.

How do you find the bioconcentration factor?

BCF is calculated as: [roots]/[soil]. Usually plants with BCF higher than one (>1) have potential for phytoextraction (soil) or rhizofiltration (water). To macrophytes, I reccomend to you to try other calculations, as the Translocation Factor (TF), that is: [shoots]/[roots].

What is bioconcentration factor BCF?

The bioconcentration factor (BCF) is the ratio of the concentration of the substance in a specific genus to the exposure concentration, at equilibrium.

What is meant by bioconcentration?

Bioconcentration is the specific bioaccumulation process by which the concentration of a chemical in an organism becomes higher than its concentration in the air or water around the organism.

What is an example of bioconcentration?

In a classic example of bioconcentration, a fish living in a river contaminated by pharmaceutical waste might intake high levels of human hormones from the water.

What is bioconcentration of pesticides?

The increase in the concentration of harmful chemical substances, such as pesticides, in the body of living organisms at each trophic level of a food chain is called bioconcentration of pesticides. The common pesticide that has accumulated in the human body in considerable amounts is DDT.

What is BCF and BAF?

The BCF = the concentration of test substance in organisms or tissues (mg/Kg) /concentration of the substance in water (mg/L), whereas, BAF = concentration of test substance in the test organism g/Kg) / concentration of the substance in the surrounding media such as sediment or soil (g/Kg).

What is the difference between bioconcentration and biomagnification?

The bioconcentration factor (BCF) refers to the chemical concentration of a substance in an organism’s tissue, divided by its equilibrium concentration in water expressed in equivalent units. The biomagnification factor (BMF, or enrichment factor ) is the ratio of observed to theoretical lipid–normalized BCF.

What is bioconcentration in environmental chemistry?

Bioconcentration is the intake and retention of a substance in an organism entirely by respiration from water in aquatic ecosystems or from air in terrestrial ones. Bioaccumulation is the intake of a chemical and its concentration in the organism by all possible means, including contact, respiration and ingestion.