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The leaching of phthalates from PVC can be determined with an infinite sink approach.
Summary
Researchers demonstrated that phthalate plasticizers can leach from PVC plastic at concentrations detectable by simple analytical methods, with leaching rates depending on plastic composition and environmental conditions. The work is relevant to understanding how microplastic particles in the environment release toxic phthalates into surrounding water and sediments.
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is the third most used polymer for plastic products in the European Union (+NO/ CH) and contains the highest amounts of additives, especially phthalic acid esters (phthalates). Leaching kinetics of additives from (micro-) plastics into aqueous environments are highly relevant for environmental risk assessment and modelling of the fluxes of plastics and its associated additives. Investigating the leaching of phthalates into aqueous environments in batch experiments is challenging due to their low solubility and high hydrophobicity and there are no standard methods to study release processes. Here we describe an infinite sink method to investigate the leaching of phthalates from PVC into the aqueous phase. Spiking and leaching experiments using bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate as a model phthalate enabled the validation and evaluation of the designed infinite sink method. The developed method offers: •a low-cost and simple approach to investigate leaching of phthalates from PVC into aqueous environments•the use of a high-surface activated carbon powder as an infinite sink•a tool to elucidate the transport fluxes of plastics and additives.