Study of toxicity of imidazolium ionic liquids to watercress (Lepidium sativum L.)

Abstract

The sensitivity of Lepidium sativum L. germination to three imidazolium ionic liquids was investigated in solutions and soils artificially contaminated with mixtures of those compounds. In case of aquatic solutions, the toxic character of analyzed compounds is connected with their hydrophobicity. The seedling growth is increasing with the decrease in ionic liquid hydrophobicity. The novelty of those studies is the application of high-performance liquid chromatography, which was used for the determination of ionic liquid quantity absorbed by cress. There was almost linear relationship between decrease in root germination and amount of ionic liquid uptaken by cress. Furthermore, the systematic studies on the influence of total organic carbon content in soil on the toxicity of ionic liquids to cress were performed for the first time. Hazardous effects appeared to be closely connected with organic matter: with the decrease of total organic carbon quantity, the inhibition of plant growth was more significant. Visual effects of ionic liquid toxic activity to garden cress are similar as in the case of nutrient deficit in plants.

Comparison of Phytotoxicity of Selected Phosphonium Ionic Liquid

“…The phytotoxicity of ionic liquids observed in the quoted studies was dependent chiefly on the applied concentration of the compound, but the factor determining the toxicity were the genetic features of the species and variety of plants used in the experiment. Matzke et al [31,38] and Studzińska and Buszewki [39] suggest also that the toxicity of ionic liquids to plants depends also on the structure of the compound and various toxic environmental factors, as well as the organic and mineral colloid contents of the soil. Cybulski et al [15] have also found that the phytotoxicity of ionic liquids is dependent on the type of cation or anion, as well as on the length of the alkyl chain.…”

“…With reference to this problem, along with scientific reports on the synthesis, physical and chemical properties and the potential for practical utilization of ionic liquids, a large number of studies have come up, which are concerned with the examination of the potential toxicity of these substances. Studies described in available literature reveal varied influences of ionic liquids on microorganisms [1,2,[17][18][19][20][21][22], plankton [21,[23][24][25][26], invertebrates [27][28][29], vertebrates [27,30], algae [2,21,23,29,[31][32][33], fungi [19,34,35] or higher land plants [8,21,31,[36][37][38][39]. The quoted literature shows that a likely toxic influence of a ionic liquid is determined by a number of factors, of which the primary role is played the cation type and the length of the substituent in the cation (as a rule, the longer alkyl chain, the higher toxicity).…”

“…Soil sorption is decisive in retaining many chemical substances in soil colloids, including toxic substances, because eg humus, as a negatively charged colloid, is able to adsorb ionic liquid cations; also mineral colloids contribute to the level of the toxic influence of many adsorbed xenobiotics [31,36,38]. The potential phytotoxicity of ionic liquids not only depends on the quantity and quality of soil colloids, but it can also be determined by the amount of a ionic liquid in the substrate and the genetic features of species or varieties [8,15,21,37,39]. At present, phytotoxicity tests are widely used in the biomonitoring of the quality of agriculturally utilized sewage sludges [46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53], residues of PAHs and pesticides [50,[56][57][58][59], or the heavy metal contents of soil [58].…”

Evaluation of toxicity and biodegradability of choline chloride based deep eutectic solvents

“…The EC 50 values for germination inhibition of ChCl:Gly, ChCl:Glc were above 20,000 mg L À 1 , while the values for ChCl:OA were about 4 times lower. In general, seed germination EC 50 values for tested DESs were higher than 5000 mg L À 1 , indicating their low toxicity (Studzińska and Buszewski, 2008;Cvjetko Bubalo et al, 2014b). Furthermore, early growth of seedling was more sensitive than the seed germination since the corresponding EC 50 values for growth were at least 5.5 lower than those for germination inhibition.…”

Response of an ion-selective electrode to butylmethylimidazolium and other ionic liquid cations. Applications in toxicological and bioremediation studies

“…Also, the relationship study between the toxicity of the ILs and their thermodynamical properties is valuable. In particular, a close relationship between toxicity and the octanol-water partition coefficient (log P) of the IL has been found [16,17].…”