5 Werkstofftechnik
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Erscheinungsjahr
- 2018 (3) (entfernen)
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- Englisch (3) (entfernen)
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- BTEX (1)
- Chemometrics (1)
- Degradation (1)
- Metformin (1)
- Microplastics (1)
- Near Infrared Spectroscopy (1)
- PLS-DA (1)
- Photocatalysis (1)
- Polypropylene (1)
- Polystyrene (1)
Organisationseinheit der BAM
- 1 Analytische Chemie; Referenzmaterialien (3) (entfernen)
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.
For years there have been more and more reports on the presence of drugs in the aquatic environment. Due to the demographic change, the consumption of pharmaceuticals has risen sharply. After taking the drugs, they are partly metabolized in the human body. However, the metabolism is not complete so that both the metabolites and non-metabolized amounts of the parent compounds are excreted. These compounds reach the waste water and afterwards the sewage treatment plants. In sewage treatment plants transformation products can be formed by the oxidative conditions during wastewater treatment processes. The transformation products may have a higher toxicity than the actual environmental pollutants and are often only partly removed during the waste water treatment. Since a lot of these compounds are still unknown, the transformation products are not detected by target analysis used in sewage treatment plants and are often released undetected in the aquatic ecosystems. The released substances may be subject to additional transformation processes in the environment. Pharmaceuticals produced in high amounts can be already detected in the μg/L range in water bodies worldwide.
Metformin and its major transformation product guanylurea are one of the main representatives. Metformin is the drug of choice for treating type 2 diabetes. The drug therapy for diabetes mellitus has increased significantly in recent years. In the year 2015 1500 tons of metformin were prescribed in Germany (for statutory insured persons). Metformin is not metabolized in the human body and is excreted unchanged therefore concentrations between 57 μg/L and 129 μg/L are found in German waste water treatment plants influents.
In this work the transformation of the antidiabetic drug metformin is investigated. The degradation of metformin is initialize by commercial water treatment techniques like UV-radiation or noncommercial techniques like heterogenous photocatalysis based on titanium dioxide. The degradation of metformin and resulting transformation products are analyzed by LC-MS/MS and LC-HRMS.
Microplastics are increasingly entering marine, limnic and terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, where they sorb hydrophobic organic contaminants. Here, the sorption behavior of the fuel-related water contaminants benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene (BTEX) and four tertiary butyl ethers to virgin and via UV radiation aged polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) pellets was investigated. Changes in material properties due to aging were recorded using appropriate polymer characterization methods, such as differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, gel permeation chromatography, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and microscopy.
Pellets were exposed to water containing BTEX and the ethers at 130-190 mg/L for up to two weeks.
Aqueous sorbate concentrations were determined by headspace gas chromatography. Sorption to the polymers was correlated with the sorbate's Kow and was significant for BTEX and marginal for the ethers.
Due to substantially lower glass transition temperatures, PP showed higher sorption than PS. Aging had no effect on the sorption behavior of PP. PS sorbed less BTEX after aging due to an oxidized surface layer.