TY - JOUR A1 - Müller, Axel A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Eisentraut, Paul A1 - Piechotta, Christian A1 - Braun, Ulrike T1 - Microplastic analysis using chemical extraction followed by LC‑UV analysis: a straightforward approach to determine PET content in environmental samples N2 - Background: The ubiquitous occurrence of microplastic particles in marine and aquatic ecosystems was intensively investigated in the past decade. However, we know less about the presence, fate, and input paths of microplastic in terrestrial ecosystems. A possible entry path for microplastic into terrestrial ecosystems is the agricultural application of sewage sludge and solid bio-waste as fertilizers. Microplastic contained in sewage sludge also includes Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which could originate as fiber from textile products or as a fragment from packaging products (foils, bottles, etc.). Information about microplastic content in such environmental samples is limited yet, as most of the used analytical methods are very time-consuming, regarding sample preparation and detection, require sophisticated analytical tools and eventually need high user knowledge. Results: Here, we present a simple, specific tool for the analysis of PET microplastic particles based on alkaline extraction of PET from the environmental matrix and subsequent determination of the monomers, terephthalic acid, using liquid chromatography with UV detection (LC-UV). The applicability of the method is shown for different types of PET in several soil-related, terrestrial environmental samples, e.g., soil, sediment, compost, fermentation residues, but also sewage sludge, suspended particles from urban water management systems, and indoor dust. Recoveries for model samples are between 94.5 and 107.1%. Limit of determination and limit of quantification are absolute masses of 0.031 and 0.121 mg PET, respectively. In order to verify the measured mass contents of the environmental samples, a method comparison with thermal extraction-desorption-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (TED-GC/MS) was conducted. Both methods deliver similar results and corroborated each other. PET mass contents in environmental samples range from values below LOQ in agriculture soil up to 57,000 mg kg−1 in dust samples. Conclusions: We demonstrate the potential of an integral method based on chemical extraction for the Determination of PET mass contents in solid environmental samples. The method was successfully applied to various matrices and may serve as an analytical tool for further investigations of PET-based microplastic in terrestrial ecosystems. KW - Soil KW - Analysis KW - Microplastic KW - PET KW - LC-UV PY - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-509060 DO - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-020-00358-x IS - 32 SP - 85 PB - Springer Open CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-50906 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dittmann, Daniel A1 - Eisentraut, Paul A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Wiesner, Yosri A1 - Jekel, M A1 - Ruhl, A S A1 - Braun, Ulrike T1 - Specific adsorption sites and conditions derived by thermal decomposition of activated carbons and adsorbed carbamazepine N2 - The adsorption of organic micropollutants onto activated carbon is a favourable solution for the treatment of drinking water and wastewater. However, these adsorption processes are not sufficiently understood to allow for the appropriate prediction of removal processes. In this study, thermogravimetric analysis, alongside evolved gas analysis, is proposed for the characterisation of micropollutants adsorbed on activated carbon. Varying amounts of carbamazepine were adsorbed onto three different activated carbons, which were subsequently dried, and their thermal decomposition mechanisms examined. The discovery of 55 different pyrolysis products allowed differentiations to be made between specific adsorption sites and conditions. However, the same adsorption mechanisms were found for all samples, which were enhanced by inorganic constituents and oxygen containing surface groups. Furthermore, increasing the loadings led to the evolution of more hydrated decomposition products, whilst parts of the carbamazepine molecules were also integrated into the carbon structure. It was also found that the chemical composition, especially the degree of dehydration of the activated carbon, plays an important role in the adsorption of carbamazepine. Hence, it is thought that the adsorption sites may have a higher adsorption energy for specific adsorbates, when the activated carbon can then potentially increase its degree of graphitisation. KW - Aktivkohle KW - TED-GC/MS KW - Adsorption KW - Thermoanalytik PY - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-506946 DO - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63481-y VL - 10 IS - 1 SP - 6695 PB - Nature Publishing Group AN - OPUS4-50694 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Dittmann, Daniel A1 - Eisentraut, Paul A1 - Wiesner, Yosri A1 - Schartel, Bernhard A1 - Klack, Patrick A1 - Braun, Ulrike T1 - Evaluation of thermoanalytical methods equipped with evolved gas analysis for the detection of microplastic in environmental samples N2 - Microplastic particles are currently detected in almost all environmental compartments. The results of detection vary widely, as a multitude of very different methods are used with very different requirements for analytical validity. In this work four thermoanalytical methods are compared and their advantages and limitations are discussed. One of them is thermal extraction-desorption gas chromatography mass spectrometry (TED-GC/MS), an analysis method for microplastic detection that has become established in recent years. In addition, thermogravimetric analysis coupled with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (TGA-FTIR) and mass spectrometry (TGA-MS) were applied, two methods that are less common in this field but are still used in other research areas. Finally, microscale combustion calorimeter (MCC) was applied, a method not yet used for microplastic detection. The presented results are taken from a recently published interlaboratory comparison test by Becker et al. (2020). Here a reference material consisting of suspended matter and specified added polymer masses was examined, and only the results of the recoveries were presented. In the present paper, however, the results for the individual polymers are discussed in detail and individual perspectives for all instruments are shown. It was found that TED-GC/MS is the most suitable method for samples with unknown matrix and unknown, variable kinds and contents of microplastic. TGA-FTIR is a robust method for samples with known matrix and with defined kinds of microplastic. TGA-MS may offer a solution for the detection of PVC particles in the future. MCC can be used as a very fast and simple screening method for the identification of a potential microplastic load of standard polymers in unknown samples. KW - Microplastic KW - TED-GC/MS KW - TGA-MS KW - TGA-FTIR KW - MCC KW - Thermal analysis PY - 2020 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-516687 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaap.2020.104961 VL - 152 SP - 104961 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-51668 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Paul, Andrea A1 - Wander, Lukas A1 - Becker, Roland A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Braun, Ulrike T1 - High-throughput NIR spectroscopic (NIRS) detection of microplastics in soil N2 - The increasing pollution of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems with plastic debris leads to the accumulation of microscopic plastic particles of still unknown amount. To monitor the degree of contamination analytical methods are urgently needed, which help to quantify microplastics (MP). Currently, time-costly purified materials enriched on filters are investigated both by micro-infrared spectroscopy and/or micro-Raman. Although yielding precise results, these techniques are time consuming, and are restricted to the analysis of a small part of the sample in the order of few micrograms. To overcome these problems, here we tested a macroscopic dimensioned NIR process-spectroscopic method in combination with chemometrics. For calibration, artificial MP/soil mixtures containing defined ratios of polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene, and polystyrene with diameters < 125 µm were prepared and measured by a process FT-NIR spectrometer equipped with a fiber optic reflection probe. The resulting spectra were processed by chemometric models including support vector machine regression (SVR), and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). Validation of models by MP mixtures, MP-free soils and real-world samples, e.g. and fermenter residue, suggest a reliable detection and a possible classification of MP at levels above 0.5 to 1.0 mass% depending on the polymer. The benefit of the combined NIRS chemometric approach lies in the rapid assessment whether soil contains MP, without any chemical pre-treatment. The method can be used with larger sample volumes and even allows for an online prediction and thus meets the demand of a high-throughput method. KW - Microplastics KW - Soil KW - Chemometrics KW - PLS-DA KW - Support vector machines KW - Near Infrared Spectroscopy PY - 2018 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2180-2 SN - 1614-7499 SN - 0944-1344 VL - 26 IS - 8 SP - 7364 EP - 7374 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-45405 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Fettig, I. A1 - Piechotta, Christian A1 - Philipp, Rosemarie A1 - Geißen, S. U. T1 - A novel GC-MS method for the determination and quantification of metformin in surface water N2 - Drug therapy for diabetes mellitus has increased significantly in recent years. 1,1-Dimethylbiguanide hydrochloride (metformin) is the most common drug used for the treatment of diabetes. Metformin is not metabolized in the human body and enters thewater cycle via sewage. A new gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method has been developed which enables the quantification of metformin in surface water samples even at low concentrations in the ng L-1 range. A solid phase extraction (SPE) method for the preconcentration of metformin and the internal standard 1-butylbiguanide (buformin) was established, and the method parameters such as the composition and volume of the eluent were optimized. Derivatization of metformin and buformin was obtained by using n-methyl-bis (trifluoroacetamide)(MBTFA). The reaction conditions of the derivatization, such as the reaction temperature and volume of the derivatization agent, were evaluated. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were determined to be 3.9 ng L-1 and 12 ng L-1 in surface water samples. Linearity was shown over a concentration range of 10–50 ng L-1. The good performance of the method was demonstrated by comparison with a liquid chromatography tandemmass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method. The results indicate that the GC-MS method is a reliable and sensitive alternative for the quantification of metformin in surface water. 1. KW - Metformin KW - GC-MS KW - Surface water PY - 2017 DO - https://doi.org/10.1039/c6ay02606k SN - 1759-9679 SN - 1759-9660 VL - 9 IS - 10 SP - 1580 EP - 1584 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry AN - OPUS4-40243 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Sojref, Regine A1 - Nguyen, Thi Yen A1 - Piechotta, Christian T1 - Immobilization of photocatalytically active TiO2 nanopowder by high shear granulation N2 - Nano-TiO2 powder is known to show high photocatalytic reactivity in the degradation of several organic pollutants. In thiswork, the powderwas fixed on the surface of SiO2 granuleswith the size of several micrometers using a high shear granulation process. Nanozirconia sol was applied as an inorganic binder. When the samples were tempered at 300 °C, they showed high stability in an aqueous solution for several hours. An energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analysis confirmed that the cores and shells of the granules consisted solely of SiO2 and TiO2 respectively, and that ZrO2 was found throughout the whole granules. Methylene blue (MB) was employed as amodel systemto evaluate the photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 nanopowder and coated granules. Itwas shown that the TiO2-coated granules lead to the degradation ofMB under UV irradiation,whereas no effect was observed in the dark. After the Degradation experiments the granules could be recovered and they remained active for further applications. KW - Heterogeneous photocatalysis KW - Water treatment KW - Advanced oxidation KW - Nanozirconia KW - Methylene blue PY - 2017 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2017.06.025 SN - 0032-5910 SN - 1873-328X VL - 318 SP - 465 EP - 470 AN - OPUS4-41608 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Mülow-Stollin, Ulrike A1 - Hering, S. A1 - Richter, Janine A1 - Piechotta, Christian A1 - Paul, Andrea A1 - Braun, Ulrike T1 - A first pilot study on the sorption of environmental pollutants on various microplastic materials N2 - With the drastic increase in plastic production, the input of plastic particles into the environment has become a recognised problem. Xenobiotics are able to sorb to polymer materials, and this process is further enhanced where they Encounter microplastics (plastic fragments <5 mm). In this work we studied the sorption of metformin, a type-2 diabetes drug, and difenoconazole, a fungicide, onto the virgin polymer materials polyamide (PA), polypropylene (PP), and polystyrene (PS). Additionally, PP was cryo-milled and PA was treated with acid to investigate the influence of an increase in surface area and chemical modification. The material properties were also studied by dynamic scanning calorimetry (DSC), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Sorption experiments were performed on the basis of a full factorial design examining the effect of agitation, pH value, and salinity. Experimental results showed that difenoconazole sorbs readily to all microplastics, whereas the more polar analyte metformin did not show any affinity to the materials used. For difenoconazole the governing factor in all cases is agitation, while both pH and salinity exhibited only a slight influence. The modification of polymers leads to enhanced sorption, indicating that an increase in surface area (cryo-milled PP) or inner volume (acid-treated PA) strongly favours adsorption. Moreover, long-term experiments demonstrated that the time until equilibrium is reached depends strongly on the particle size. KW - Difenoconazole KW - Metformin KW - Plastic debris KW - Polymer KW - Dynamic scanning calorimetry PY - 2017 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-402393 DO - https://doi.org/10.4172/2380-2391.1000191 SN - 2380-2391 VL - 4 IS - 1 SP - Article 1000191, 1 EP - 8 PB - Omics International CY - Los Angeles AN - OPUS4-40239 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Altmann, Korinna A1 - Goedecke, Caroline A1 - Bannick, C.-G. A1 - Abusafia, A. A1 - Scheid, C. A1 - Steinmetz, H. A1 - Paul, Andrea A1 - Beleites, C. A1 - Braun, U. T1 - Identification of microplastic pathways within a typical European urban wastewater system N2 - In recent years, thermoextraction/desorption-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (TED-GC/MS) has been developed as a rapid detection method for the determination of microplastics (MP) mass contents in numerous environmentally relevant matrices and, in particular, for the measurement of polymers in water samples without time-consuming sample preparation. The TED-GC/MS method was applied to investigate a typical European municipal wastewater system for possible MP masses. Such investigations are important in view of the recent revision of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. Four different representative sampling sites were selected: greywater (domestic wastewater without toilet), combined sewer, and influent and effluent of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). All samples were collected by fractional filtration. Filtration was carried out over mesh sizes of 500, 100, 50, and in some cases, 5 µm. Polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polystyrene (PS) were detected in all samples, with the PE fraction dominating in all cases. Styrene-butadiene rubber which serves as an indication of tire abrasion, was only found in the influent of the WWTP. The highest MP mass contents were found in the combined sewer, so MP can become a source of pollution during heavy rain events when the capacity limits of the effluent are reached, and the polluted effluent is released uncontrolled into the environment. Based on the studies, MP retention from the WWTP could be estimated to be approximately 96%. Few trends in polymer type or mass contents were detected within the different fractions of the samples or when comparing samples to each other. KW - Microplastics KW - Microplastic analysis KW - TED-GC/MS KW - Microplastic pathways KW - Mass contents PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-568289 DO - https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1002/appl.202200078 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-56828 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -