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Aging-mediated selective adsorption of antibiotics by tire wear particles: Hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions effects
Summary
Tire wear particles (a major form of microplastic pollution on roads) become more porous and adsorptive after aging through freeze-thaw cycles or ozone exposure, increasing their capacity to carry certain antibiotics by up to 28-fold for fluoroquinolones. However, the same aging process reduces adsorption of sulfonamide and tetracycline antibiotics, reflecting how the chemistry of both the particle and the antibiotic interact. This shows that weathered tire particles on roadways and in waterways can act as vehicles for antibiotic transport, with implications for antibiotic resistance spread in the environment.
Tire wear particles (TWPs), as a prevalent form of microplastic pollution in aquatic environments, have been shown to adsorb antibiotics, potentially exacerbating their toxic effects. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the adsorption of ofloxacin (OFL), ciprofloxacin (CIP), sulfadiazine (SDZ), and tetracycline (TC) on TWPs that have undergone various aging processes, including cyclic freeze-thaw and ozone aging. We observed a significant increase in the specific surface area (SBET) of TWPs after aging, from an initial 2.81 ± 0.29 to 6.63 ± 0.16 m/g for ozone-aged TWPs. This enhancement in surface area and pore volume led to a respective 1.36-fold and 28-fold increase in adsorption capacity for OFL and CIP, highlighting the substantial impact of aging on TWPs' adsorptive properties. Conversely, the adsorption of SDZ and TC was reduced post-aging, suggesting a complex interaction between antibiotic physicochemical properties and TWPs' surface characteristics. The pseudo-second-order model, indicating chemisorption interactions, effectively described the adsorption kinetics, with the Freundlich isotherm model capturing the adsorption behavior more accurately than the Langmuir model. Our findings underscore the critical role of hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions in the adsorption process, particularly for SDZ and TC. This study's results offer crucial insights into the environmental implications of TWPs, emphasizing the need for further research on their role in the transport and fate of antibiotics in aquatic ecosystems.
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