Sorption of pharmaceuticals on the surface of microplastics

Physisorption and Chemisorption Mechanisms Influencing Micro (Nano) Plastics-Organic Chemical Contaminants Interactions: A Review

“…It has been reported that MNPs are capable of serving as vectors for transporting hydrophobic organic microcontaminants such as polybrominated diethers (PBDs), polyfluorinated alkyls (PFAS), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalates surfactants, personal care products (PCPs), pharmaceuticals (tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, sertraline, propranolol, and sulfamethoxazole) in terrestrial and aquatic environments Atugoda et al, 2020;Puckowski et al, 2021). The adhesion of these contaminants to microplastics in the environment is a function the high surface area to volume ratio and hydrophobicity of microplastic particles.…”

“…Conversely, lower sorption capacity is likely associated with electrostatic repulsion between the negative charges of microplastics and contaminants that exhibit anionic characteristics (Razanajatovo et al, 2018;Tourinho et al, 2019;Xu et al, 2019). Generally, the electrostatic repulsion or sorption (attraction) between charged molecules of contaminants and net surface charge on polymers is primarily influenced by three key factors including the medium pH, the pH of point of zero charge of the MPs, and the acid dissociation constant associated with the micropollutant (Razanajatovo et al, 2018;Tourinho et al, 2019;Puckowski et al, 2021).…”

“…In recent years, many synthetic hydrophobic organic chemicals have found far reaching applications in pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs). The broad utilization of these chemicals has prompted growing concerns over their ecotoxicity and widespread availability in terrestrial and aquatic environments as contaminants (Oberg and Leopold, 2019;Atugoda et al, 2020;Puckowski et al, 2021). Most PPCPs comprise of complex organic compounds of bioactive ingredients including pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics (tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, sertraline, propranolol, and sulfamethoxazole), antiseptics, disinfectants, analgesics, and cytostatic hormones, which when released into the aquatic environment could exert harmful effects on human health, biota and the environment (Yin et al, 2017;Dey et al, 2019;Yang et al, 2021).…”

Sorption of chemical contaminants on degradable and non-degradable microplastics: Recent progress and research trends

“…The same behavior was observed by Vockenberg et al (2020), where diphenylamine (DPA) showed stronger sorption affinity to microplastics under high NaCl concentrations. Puckowski et al (2021) reported that ionic strength also affected the sorption of multiple pharmaceuticals, resulting in reduced interactions in environmental conditions.…”

Organic Contaminants and Interactions with Micro- and Nano-Plastics in the Aqueous Environment: Review of Analytical Methods

“…A summary of selected studies performed by HPLC is shown in Table 2. In most studies, chromatography was performed with a C-18 column, which captures nonpolar to intermediate polar TOrCs [22,28,34,38,48,67,[70][71][72][73][74][75][76]. Advantages of an HPLC analysis are that an individual separation of the individual molecules takes place and detailed results can be (re)produced [47,70,71].…”