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The combined effects of polystyrene nanoplastics and dissolved organic matter on the environmental bioavailability of carbamazepine
Summary
Researchers investigated how polystyrene nanoplastics and dissolved organic matter together affect the bioavailability of the pharmaceutical carbamazepine in water. They found that co-exposure to nanoplastics and fulvic acid increased the bioaccumulation of carbamazepine in water fleas, likely because the organic matter reduced nanoplastic sorption and allowed more of the drug to be absorbed. The study suggests that complex environmental mixtures can amplify the uptake of pharmaceutical pollutants by aquatic organisms.
The bioavailability of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) plays a crucial role in determining the toxicity and risk of contaminants in the environment. However, the bioavailability of APIs in complex environmental matrices is still unclear. In this study, the combined effects of polystyrene nanoplastics (PS NPs) with various particle sizes (50, 100, and 1000 nm) and fulvic acid (FA) on the bioavailability of carbamazepine (CBZ) were investigated via negligible depletion solid-phase microextraction (nd-SPME) and Daphnia magna (D. magna) accumulation. The uptake kinetic study revealed that both PS NPs and FA reduced the elimination rate (k) in most cases. The availability of CBZ to nd-SPME was determined by the hydrodynamic particle size of PS NPs, whereas the bioavailability to D. magna depended on the intrinsic particle size. The CBZ bioavailability was greater in co-exposed matrices due to the attenuated sorption of PS NPs to CBZ by FA modification. Notably, co-exposure of PS NPs and FA resulted in a higher bioaccumulation factor (BAF) of CBZ, probably due to the desorption and reabsorption of particle-associated CBZ. This study demonstrated that both PS NP particle size and FA binding affect the bioavailability of CBZ, and nd-SPME can mimic only the bioaccumulation of CBZ via diffusion.
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