Dynamic speciation analysis of atrazine in aqueous latex nanoparticle dispersions using solid phase microextraction (SPME)

Uptake and Release Kinetics of Organic Contaminants Associated with Micro- and Nanoplastic Particles

A generic theoretical framework is presented for describing the kinetics of uptake and release of organic compounds that associate with plastic particles. The underlying concepts account for the physicochemical features of the target organic compounds and the plastic particles. The developed framework builds on concepts established for dynamic speciation analysis by solid-phase microextraction and the size-dependent reactivity features of particulate complexants. The theoretical framework is applied to interpretation of literature data, thereby providing more rigorous insights into previous observations. The presented concepts enable predictions of the sink/source functioning of plastic particles and their impact on the dynamic chemical speciation of organic compounds in aqueous environmental media and within biota. Our results highlight the fundamental influence of particle size on the uptake and release kinetics. The findings call for a comprehensive description of the physicochemical features of plastic particles to be provided in experimental studies on micro- and nanoplastics in different types of aquatic environmental media.

Lability-specific enrichment of typical engineered metal (oxide) nanoparticles by surface-functionalized microbubbles from waters

Enrichment of metallic engineered nanoparticles (MENPs) from environmental waters is a prerequisite for their removal, reliable analyses, and environmental process interpretations. This work investigated the enrichment of typical MENPs with different degrees of lability using surface-functionalized microbbubles. During the process, the transformation/dissolution characteristics of MENPs were considered, and the impact of surfactant or coagulant dose, pH of MENP suspensions, and water matrix was systematically investigated. Results show that the colloidal gas aphrons (CGAs) were capable of enriching over 90.0% of ionic Ag(I) which ended up as AgBr and Ag₂CO₃ in floats when the pH of suspension was 6.0. The polyaluminum chloride-modified CGAs with positive surface charges were good at capturing the particulate ZnO-NPs (~84.8%) but failed to collect the ionic species. It should be noted that the total MENP enrichment efficiency closely related to the content proportions of different species. In the river water, both of the dissolved natural organic matter (fulvic acids) and the electrolytes might influence the enrichment process by affecting the species transformation of Ag-NPs and ZnO-NPs. For the stable TiO₂-NPs, 97.1% of the nanoparticles were captured by CGAs. FAs apparently reinforced the enrichment performance since the molecules acted as bridge and facilitated the attachment between TiO₂-NP and CGAs. This work contributes to establishing the robust microbubble-induced enrichment method considering the characteristics of MENP contaminants.

Determination of the mass transfer coefficients in direct immersion solid-phase microextraction

Diffusion of the analytes across the diffusion boundary layers and subsequently through the fiber coatings determines the extraction kinetics of solid-phase microextraction in aqueous matrices. Besides, the matrix effects can distort the behaviors of the analytes transferring across the diffusion boundary layers. However, these processes were always studied via certain simplification, which often left the mass transfer through the fiber coatings unconsidered and the matrix effects partially investigated. Herein, a comprehensive study on the mass transfer processes in direct immersion solid-phase microextraction was presented. Under different agitation speeds, it was determined that the mass transfer coefficients across the diffusion boundary layers were three to six orders larger than those through the fiber coatings. However, the mass transfer across the diffusion boundary layers was generally the major rate-limiting step. In addition, the shuttle effect and the barrier effect, which were responsible for accelerating and retarding the extraction kinetics, respectively, were found to be the dominant matrix effect alternately under different agitation speeds. This study comprehensively illustrated the major rate-limiting step and the dominant matrix effects through recording the mass transfer coefficients.

Automated method for determination of dissolved organic carbon-water distribution constants of structurally diverse pollutants using pre-equilibrium solid-phase microextraction

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) plays a key role in determining the environmental fate of semivolatile organic environmental contaminants. The goal of the present study was to develop a method using commercially available hardware to rapidly characterize the sorption properties of DOC in water samples. The resulting method uses negligible-depletion direct immersion solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Its performance was evaluated using Nordic reference fulvic acid and 40 priority environmental contaminants that cover a wide range of physicochemical properties. Two SPME fibers had to be used to cope with the span of properties, 1 coated with polydimethylsiloxane and 1 coated with polystyrene divinylbenzene polydimethylsiloxane, for nonpolar and semipolar contaminants, respectively. The measured DOC-water distribution constants showed reasonably good reproducibility (standard deviation ≤ 0.32) and good correlation (R(2)  = 0.80) with log octanol-water partition coefficients for nonpolar persistent organic pollutants. The sample pretreatment is limited to filtration, and the method is easy to adjust to different DOC concentrations. These experiments also utilized the latest SPME automation that largely decreases total cycle time (to 20 min or shorter) and increases sample throughput, which is advantageous in cases when many samples of DOC must be characterized or when the determinations must be performed quickly, for example, to avoid precipitation, aggregation, and other changes of DOC structure and properties. The data generated by this method are valuable as a basis for transport and fate modeling studies.

Speciation analysis of aqueous nanoparticulate diclofenac complexes by solid-phase microextraction

The dynamic sorption of an organic compound by nanoparticles (NPs) is analyzed by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) for the example case of the pharmaceutical diclofenac in dispersions of impermeable (silica, SiO(2)) and permeable (bovine serum albumin, BSA) NPs. It is shown that only the protonated neutral form of diclofenac is accumulated in the solid phase, and hence this species governs the eventual partition equilibrium. On the other hand, the rate of the solid/water partition equilibration is enhanced in the presence of the sorbing nanoparticles of SiO(2) and BSA. This feature demonstrates that the NPs themselves do not enter the solid phase to any appreciable extent. The enhanced rate of attainment of equilibrium is due to a shuttle-type of contribution from the NP-species to the diffusive supply of diclofenac to the water/solid interface. For both types of nanoparticulate complexes, the rate constant for desorption (k(des)) of bound diclofenac was derived from the measured thermodynamic affinity constant and a diffusion-limited rate of adsorption. The computed k(des) values were found to be sufficiently high to render the NP-bound species labile on the effective time scale of SPME. In agreement with theoretical prediction, the experimental results are quantitatively described by fully labile behavior of the diclofenac/nanoparticle system and an ensuing accumulation rate controlled by the coupled diffusion of neutral, deprotonated, and NP-bound diclofenac species.

Electric relaxation processes in chemodynamics of aqueous metal complexes: from simple ligands to soft nanoparticulate complexants

The chemodynamics of metal complexes with nanoparticulate complexants can differ significantly from that for simple ligands. The spatial confinement of charged sites and binding sites to the nanoparticulate body impacts on the time scales of various steps in the overall complex formation process. The greater the charge carried by the nanoparticle, the longer it takes to set up the counterion distribution equilibrium with the medium. A z+ metal ion (z > 1) in a 1:1 background electrolyte will accumulate in the counterionic atmosphere around negatively charged simple ions, as well as within/around the body of a soft nanoparticle with negative structural charge. The rate of accumulation is often governed by diffusion and proceeds until Boltzmann partition equilibrium between the charged entity and the ions in the medium is attained. The electrostatic accumulation proceeds simultaneously with outer-sphere and inner-sphere complex formation. The rate of the eventual inner-sphere complex formation is generally controlled by the rate constant of dehydration of the metal ion, k(w). For common transition metal ions with moderate to fast dehydration rates, e.g., Cu(2+), Pb(2+), and Cd(2+), it is shown that the ionic equilibration with the medium may be the slower step and thus rate-limiting in their overall complexation with nanoparticles.

Dissolved organic carbon enhances the mass transfer of hydrophobic organic compounds from nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) into the aqueous phase

The hypothesis that dissolved organic carbon (DOC) enhances the mass transfer of hydrophobic organic compounds from nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) into the aqueous phase above that attributable to dissolved molecular diffusion alone was tested. In controlled experiments, mass transfer rates of five NAPL-phase PAHs (log K(OW) 4.15-5.39) into the aqueous phase containing different concentrations of DOC were measured. Mass transfer rates were increased by up to a factor of 4 in the presence of DOC, with the greatest enhancement being observed for more hydrophobic compounds and highest DOC concentrations. These increases could not be explained by dissolved molecular diffusion alone, and point to a parallel DOC-mediated diffusive pathway. The nature of the DOC-mediated diffusion pathway as a function of the DOC concentration and PAH sorption behavior to the DOC was investigated using diffusion-based models. The DOC-enhanced mass transfer of NAPL-phase hydrophobic compounds into the aqueous phase has important implications for their bioremediation as well as bioconcentration and toxicity.

Combined effects of titanium dioxide and humic acid on the bioaccumulation of cadmium in Zebrafish

The combined effects of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles and humic acid (HA) on the bioaccumulation of cadmium (Cd) in Zebrafish were investigated. Experimental data on the equilibrium Cd bioaccumulation suggest that only the dissolved Cd effectively contributed to Cd bioaccumulation in HA solutions whereas both the dissolved and TiO2 associated Cd were accumulated in TiO2 or the mixture of HA and TiO2 solutions, due likely to the additional intestine uptake of the TiO2-bound Cd. The equilibrium Cd bioaccumulation in the mixed system was comparable to that in the corresponding HA solutions, and significantly lower than that in the corresponding TiO2 solutions (n=3, p<0.05). The presence of either HA or TiO2 (5-20 mg L(-1)) in water slightly increased the uptake rate constants of Cd bioaccumulation whereas combining HA and TiO2 reduced the uptake rate constants.

Bioavailability of organochlorine compounds in aqueous suspensions of fullerene: evaluated with medaka (Oryzias latipes) and negligible depletion solid-phase microextraction

The wide application of engineered nanomaterials, such as fullerene (C(60)), will inevitably lead to their release into the aqueous environment, which may alter the bioavailability of organic compounds to aquatic organisms. Negligible depletion solid-phase microextraction (nd-SPME) together with medaka (Oryzias latipes) bioaccumulation were used to study the effects of aqueous suspensions of fullerene (nC(60)) on the bioavailability of eight organochlorine compounds (OCCs) (logK(OW) 3.76-6.96). Freely dissolved concentrations of OCCs decreased by 11.5-88.4% at addition of 5mgL(-1)nC(60) as indicated by reduced equilibrium concentrations in the SPME fiber coating, the highest reduction being observed for the most hydrophobic OCCs. Medaka bioaccumulation study demonstrated that at the kinetic uptake regime, nC(60) significantly decreased the bioaccumulation of the high hydrophobic OCCs (logK(OW)>6), but slightly enhanced the bioaccumulation of the less hydrophobic OCCs (logK(OW)<6). The OCC concentrations in medaka (C(fish)) at the kinetic uptake regime linearly correlated with that in nd-SPME fiber (C(fiber)) without nC(60) (p=0.007-0.013, R(2)=0.666-0.723), but this correlation deteriorated with the presence of nC(60) (p=0.073-0.081, R(2)=0.423-0.440). These results suggest that in nC(60) the uptake mechanism of OCCs to medaka is different from that to nd-SPME fiber. While only the freely dissolved OCCs are available to nd-SPME fiber, both the freely dissolved and the nC(60) associated OCCs contributed to the accumulation of OCCs to medaka.

Dissolved organic matter enhances transport of PAHs to aquatic organisms

In this study, the uptake of pyrene and benzo[b]fluoranthene by an aquatic worm (Lumbriculus variegatus) and a poly(dimethylsiloxane) coated glass fiber was studied at different humic acid concentrations. The accumulation of pyrene was not affected by the presence of the humic matrix. However, the accumulation rate of benzo[b]fluoranthene increased a factor of 3 for the fiber and a factor of 4 when 55 mg L(-1) dissolved organic carbon was added in the form of humic acid. The difference between the two chemicals can be explained by the higher affinity of benzo[b]fluoranthene for the dissolved humic material. A comparison of modeled transport enhancement of benzo[b]fluoranthene by humic acid and the experimental results suggested that the benzo[b]fluoranthene complexed with the humic phase was not completely labile.