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Effect of aging on adsorption behavior of polystyrene microplastics for pharmaceuticals: Adsorption mechanism and role of aging intermediates
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Photo-Fenton-accelerated aging of polystyrene microplastics was found to shift the dominant adsorption mechanism for pharmaceuticals from hydrophobic/π-π interactions in pristine PS to electrostatic and hydrogen bonding in aged PS, while high concentrations of aging intermediates suppressed adsorption capacity. The study reveals how environmental weathering fundamentally changes how microplastics interact with pharmaceutical pollutants.
In the environment, aging obviously changes physicochemical properties of microplastics (MPs), but the effects of aging process on adsorption behavior of MPs are not fully understood. In this study, the aging of polystyrene (PS) was accelerated by photo-Fenton reaction. The adsorption mechanism of different aged PS toward atorvastatin (ATV) and amlodipine (AML) and the role of PS-derived intermediates in adsorption process were investigated. Results showed that the adsorption of pristine PS toward pharmaceuticals relied on hydrophobic and π-π interaction, while for aged PS, electrostatic interaction and hydrogen bonding controlled the adsorption. The study revealed that the intermediates released from aging process in high concentration (TOC of 10 mg/L) significantly decreased the adsorption of ATV (10 mg/L) on PS (5.0 g/L) but increased the adsorption of AML (10 mg/L). However, those intermediates at environmental concentration (0.1 mg/L) exhibited low effects on adsorption of pharmaceuticals (1.0 mg/L) on MPs (0.5 g/L of PS). The impact mainly depended on electrostatic interaction between MPs and aging intermediates. Besides, the adsorption of low-degree aged PS was more susceptible to the aging intermediates than that of high-degree aged ones. These findings highlight significant implication of MP-derived intermediates in aquatic environments.
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