ABSTRACT
Dibutyl ketone has been detected in leachates from low-level radioactive waste disposal sites, in wastewater effluents from domestic sewage, and in wastewater effluents from chemical manufacturing. Dibutyl ketone may be found as a contaminant of other solvents and can therefore be released to the atmosphere by evaporation. Volatilization is expected to be an important environmental fate process for dibutyl ketone in water. Volatilization half-lives of 7.1 and 80 hr have been estimated for a model river and a model environmental pond, respectively. Based on the experimental vapor pressure, dibutyl ketone can be expected to exist almost entirely in the vapor phase in the ambient atmosphere. Using a Warburg respirometer, a municipal activated sludge inocula, and a 24-hr incubation period, dibutyl ketone was observed to have a theoretical BOD of 7.9 percent at a concn of 500 ppm. Based upon the measured water solubility, the Koc for dibutyl ketone can be estimated to be 167 from a regression-derived equation.
