Comments on “Spatial distribution of typical persistent organic pollutants in South China Sea by economical solid phase microextraction with hierarchical porous biochar” (Chen et al., 2025, J Hazard Mater 492: 138262)

What is it about?

Spatial distribution of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in coastal oceans is subject to hydrological dynamics. Although the effort to develop new preprocessing methods for marine POPs detection is appreciated, the hurried data report of remarkable POPs levels in relevant coastal ocean is questionable. Even if the unexpected high POPs concentrations can be validated, the single-survey result has been biased by the episodic terrestrial inputs following a spring flood event. The oversimplified data set and spatial distribution reported by Chen et al. [1] should not be regarded as the basis for relevant environmental assessment and/or management.

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