Degradation of triphenylborane-pyridine antifouling agent in water by copper ions

Triphenylborane-pyridine (TPBP) is an antifouling compound used in Asian countries, including Japan, and its residue has not been detected in aquatic environments to date. There are limited data on its fate for environmental management. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether TPBP is degraded by metal ions in aquatic environments. TPBP with metal ions in 20 mM sodium acetate buffer at pH 8.0 was placed at 25 degrees C in the dark for 24 h. The concentrations of TPBP and its degradation products, such as diphenylboronic acid, phenylboronic acid (MPB), phenol, benzene, biphenyl, and boron were determined. The presence of copper ions (50 mg/l), but not zinc or manganese ions, resulted in complete degradation of TPBP in 24 h. The TPBP degradation was much faster than the boron production in the initial reaction (0-1 h) with copper salts, depending on the copper salts tested. TPBP was degraded by copper ions (5 mg/l) in 24 h, producing phenol, MPB, biphenyl, and borate. Cu2+ as copper(II) chloride or copper(II) acetate led to complete degradation of TPBP, and thylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt addition suppressed the TPBP degradation. Cu+ as copper(I) acetate also completely degraded TPBP, and bathocuproine addition suppressed the TPBP degradation. This suggests that copper ions existing in natural environments might degrade TPBP released from antifouling paint into water, and this could be one of the important mechanisms to dissipate TPBP residues in aquatic environments.

Contemporary sample stacking in analytical electrophoresis

Sample stacking is a term denoting a multifarious class of methods and their names that are used daily in CE for online concentration of diluted samples to enhance separation efficiency and sensitivity of analyses. The essence of these methods is that analytes present at low concentrations in a large injected sample zone are concentrated into a short and sharp zone (stack) in the separation capillary. Then the stacked analytes are separated and detected. Regardless of the diversity of the stacking electromigration methods, one can distinguish four main principles that form the bases of nearly all of them: (i) Kohlrausch adjustment of concentrations, (ii) pH step, (iii) micellar methods, and (iv) transient ITP. This contribution is a continuation of our previous reviews on the topic and brings an overview of papers published during 2010-2012 and relevant to the mentioned principles (except the last one which is covered by another review in this issue).