Adsorption of antibiotics on microplastics.

By Jia Li, Kaina Zhang, Hua Zhang. Environmental Pollution, 2018

1,123 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Microplastics and antibiotics are two classes of emerging contaminants with proposed negative impacts to aqueous ecosystems. Adsorption of antibiotics on microplastics may result in their long-range transport and may cause compound combination effects. In this study, we investigated the adsorption of 5 antibiotics [sulfadiazine (SDZ), amoxicillin (AMX), tetracycline (TC), ciprofloxacin (CIP), and trimethoprim (TMP)] on 5 types of microplastics [polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP), polyamide (PA), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)] in the freshwater and seawater systems. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffractometer (XRD) analysis revealed that microplastics have different surface characterizes and various degrees of crystalline. Adsorption isotherms demonstrated that PA had the strongest adsorption capacity for antibiotics with distribution coefficient (Kd) values ranged from 7.36 ± 0.257 to 756 ± 48.0 L kg-1 in the freshwater system, which can be attributed to its porous structure and hydrogen bonding. Relatively low adsorption capacity was observed on other four microplastics. The adsorption amounts of 5 antibiotics on PS, PE, PP, and PVC decreased in the order of CIP > AMX > TMP > SDZ > TC with Kf correlated positively with octanol-water partition coefficients (Log Kow). Comparing to freshwater system, adsorption capacity in seawater decreased significantly and no adsorption was observed for CIP and AMX. Our results indicated that commonly observed polyamide particles can serve as a carrier of antibiotics in the aquatic environment.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a55b44776f082f03440959995d2366cf0366c889

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

1. A. Pozzi
2. G. Binda
3. Yuhuan Sun
4. C. Adams
5. Fayuan Wang
6. Silvia Galafassi
7. Roberta Bettinetti
8. A. Bellasi

In Pollution

1. A. Pozzi
2. G. Binda
3. Quanlong Wang
4. Yuhuan Sun
5. C. Adams
6. Fayuan Wang
7. Silvia Galafassi
8. Roberta Bettinetti

Citations in the corpus

• Microplastic Contamination in Freshwater Environments: A Review, Focusing on Interactions with Sediments and Benthic Organisms (2020, background): “Moreover, pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have also been observed to be affected by adsorption on MPs [96,97].”
• Microplastic sources, formation, toxicity and remediation: a review (2023, background): “Approximately 10–20% of microplastics discharged into the aquatic environment come from ocean-based sources, including seaside tourism, commercial fishing, marine vessels, and offshore industries (Li 2018; Karbalaei et al. 2019).”
• Interactions between microplastics and soil fauna: A critical review (2021, background): “In China, the average annual quantity of MPs entering the soil environment from sewage sludge production is estimated to be 1.56 1014 particles (X. Li et al., 2018).”