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Kandylioti I, Vione D, Minella M, Naka A, Psillakis E. Solar light photodegradation of nicotine in the presence of aged polystyrene microplastics. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2024; 919:170500. [PMID: 38336070 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170500] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2023] [Revised: 01/25/2024] [Accepted: 01/25/2024] [Indexed: 02/12/2024]
Abstract
Limited information exists on the potential of aged microplastics to induce photodegradation of organic pollutants under sunlight irradiation. In this work, nicotine (NIC), a widespread emerging contaminant, was used as a model organic substrate to investigate this innovative degradation process. Polystyrene (PS) pellets were artificially aged and became rich in oxygenated moieties with their carbonyl index reaching 0.43 ± 0.04 after 4 d of aging. The degradation of NIC photosensitized by aged PS at different pH values was monitored for 6 h under simulated sunlight irradiation (650 W/m2). The maximum degradation rate was observed at pH = 11 (75 % NIC removal from a 10 mg L-1 solution containing 50 g L-1 aged PS pellets), suggesting that the unprotonated NIC is the most photoreactive form. Increasing the PS load from 50 to 200 g L-1 accelerated NIC degradation. The addition of 2.5 mg L-1 humic acids had a slight enhancement role (82 % NIC degradation), which confirms their effectiveness as photosensitizers. NIC photosensitization by aged PS was also studied in the presence of t-butanol (55 % NIC removal in solutions containing 100 mg L-1 t-butanol) and in anoxic conditions (NIC solution purged with N2; 95 % NIC removal), to gain insight into the respective roles of the potentially formed •OH and 1O2. The main photo-produced reactive species involved in NIC degradation likely were the triplet states of the PS beads (3PS*). Differently from most advanced oxidation processes, NIC's photodegradation by aged PS was not affected by increasing amount of chloride and we observed negligible differences between NIC degradation in ultra-pure water and seawater. The effectiveness of irradiated PS towards NIC photodegradation was also investigated in tap water and secondary wastewater. Overall, the possibility to decontaminate polluted water with waste-derived materials is interesting in the framework of circular economy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Irina Kandylioti
- Laboratory of Aquatic Chemistry, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, GR-73100 Chania, Crete, Greece
| | - Davide Vione
- Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 5, 10125 Turin, Italy
| | - Marco Minella
- Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 5, 10125 Turin, Italy.
| | - Alexandra Naka
- Laboratory of Aquatic Chemistry, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, GR-73100 Chania, Crete, Greece
| | - Elefteria Psillakis
- Laboratory of Aquatic Chemistry, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, GR-73100 Chania, Crete, Greece.
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de Granda-Orive JI, Solano-Reina S, Jiménez-Ruiz CA. Tobacco as a Source of Microplastics. Tobacco and Environment: World No Tobacco Day 2022. Arch Bronconeumol 2022; 58:395-397. [PMID: 35570088 DOI: 10.1016/j.arbres.2022.04.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2022] [Accepted: 04/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Carlos A Jiménez-Ruiz
- Unidad Especializada de Tabaquismo de la Comunidad de Madrid, Hospital Clínico San Carlos Madrid, Spain
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Alberti S, Sotiropoulou M, Fernández E, Solomou N, Ferretti M, Psillakis E. UV-254 degradation of nicotine in natural waters and leachates produced from cigarette butts and heat-not-burn tobacco products. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 2021; 194:110695. [PMID: 33400945 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110695] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/22/2020] [Revised: 12/20/2020] [Accepted: 12/27/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Nicotine is an important emerging contaminant widely detected in water resources. The main nicotine sources are human excretions from users and leaching from discarded tobacco product waste, which represents the most commonly littered item in urban areas and coasts. In this study, the UV254 photolytical fate of nicotine in natural water and leachates produced from conventional cigarettes (CCs) and the new generation heat-not-burn (HnBs) tobacco products is examined for the first time. The effect of UV254 irradiation on nicotine depletion in ultrapure water was initially studied. The reaction was pseudo first-order with respect to nicotine concentration at low concentrations and shifted to lower order at higher concentrations, an effect associated to absorption saturation. Although nicotine removal was fast, only 9.5% of the total organic carbon was removed after irradiation due to the formation of by-products. The chemical structures of six photo-products were derived by means of liquid and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. The photodegradation kinetics was found to depend on pH and faster kinetics were recorded when the monoprotonated form of nicotine was dominant (pH = 5-8). The presence of humic acids was found to slightly delay kinetics as they competed with nicotine for lamp irradiance, whereas the presence of salt had no effect on the direct photolysis of nicotine. Direct photolysis studies were also performed using natural waters. Compared to ultra-pure water, photodegradation was found to proceed slightly slower in river water, in similar kinetics in seawater, and relatively faster in rain water. The later was assumed to be due to the lower pH compared to the rest of the natural water tested. Leachates from used HnBs and smoked CCs were also submitted to UV254 irradiation and direct photolysis was found to proceed fast despite the high complexity of these matrices. Nonetheless, the total organic carbon in the system remained the same after irradiation due to the abundance of organics and photo-products formed. We take advantage of the present investigations and report the leaching behavior of nicotine from HnBs and CCs. Among others, we found that in HnBs ~70% of the total and bioavailable nicotine content remains in the tobacco sticks after operation and this percentage drops to 15% in CCs due to the reduction in mass after smoking. This finding demonstrated the importance of properly disposing tobacco product waste to prevent nicotine leaching in water bodies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefano Alberti
- Laboratory of Aquatic Chemistry, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, 73100, Chania, Crete, Greece; Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università Degli Studi di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 31, 16146, Genova, Italy
| | - Maria Sotiropoulou
- Laboratory of Aquatic Chemistry, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, 73100, Chania, Crete, Greece
| | - Elena Fernández
- Laboratory of Aquatic Chemistry, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, 73100, Chania, Crete, Greece
| | - Nicoleta Solomou
- Laboratory of Aquatic Chemistry, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, 73100, Chania, Crete, Greece
| | - Maurizio Ferretti
- Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università Degli Studi di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 31, 16146, Genova, Italy
| | - Elefteria Psillakis
- Laboratory of Aquatic Chemistry, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, 73100, Chania, Crete, Greece.
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