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Desorption of sulfamethoxazole from polyamide 6 microplastics: Environmental factors, simulated gastrointestinal fluids, and desorption mechanisms
Summary
Researchers examined the adsorption of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) onto polyamide 6 microplastics and the desorption behavior under different environmental conditions including simulated seawater, gastric fluid, and intestinal fluid, finding that desorption was significantly higher in gastrointestinal fluids than in aqueous environments. The results suggest that organisms ingesting antibiotic-loaded polyamide microplastics may experience higher internal antibiotic exposure than previously estimated.
Microplastics (MPs) can enrich pollutants after being released into the environment, and the contaminants-loaded MPs are usually ingested by organisms, resulting in a potential dual biotoxic effect. In this paper, the adsorption behavior of Sulfamethoxazole (SMX) on Polyamide 6 (PA6) MPs was systematically investigated and simulated by the kinetic and isotherm models. The effect of environmental conditions (pH, salinity) on the adsorption process was studied, and the desorption behavior of SMX-loaded PA6 MPs was focused on simulating the seawater, ultrapure water, gastric and intestinal fluids. We found that lower pH and solubilization of SMX by gastrointestinal components (bovine serum albumin (BSA), sodium taurocholate (NaT), and pepsin) can reduce the electrostatic interaction between the surface charge of PA6 MPs and SMX. The result will lead to an increase in the desorption capacity of SMX-loaded PA6 MPs in gastrointestinal fluids and therefore will provide a reasonable mechanism for the desorption of SMX-loaded PA6 MPs in the gastrointestinal fluids. This study will provide a theoretical reference for studying the desorption behavior of SMX-loaded PA6 MPs under gastrointestinal conditions.