Adsorption and desorption behaviors of antibiotics by tire wear particles and polyethylene microplastics with or without aging processes

Xiulei Fan; Rong Gan; Jiaqiang Liu; Ya Xie; Dezhi Xu; Yuan Xiang; Jikang Su; Zhen Teng; Jun Hou

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145451

Adsorption and desorption behaviors of antibiotics by tire wear particles and polyethylene microplastics with or without aging processes

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Jun 1:771:145451. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145451. Epub 2021 Jan 28.

Authors

Xiulei Fan¹, Rong Gan², Jiaqiang Liu³, Ya Xie², Dezhi Xu², Yuan Xiang², Jikang Su², Zhen Teng², Jun Hou⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Industrial Pollution Control and Resource Reuse of Jiangsu Province, College of Environmental Engineering, Xuzhou University of Technology, Xuzhou 221018, China. Electronic address: xlfan@xzit.edu.cn.
² Key Laboratory of Industrial Pollution Control and Resource Reuse of Jiangsu Province, College of Environmental Engineering, Xuzhou University of Technology, Xuzhou 221018, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Industrial Pollution Control and Resource Reuse of Jiangsu Province, College of Environmental Engineering, Xuzhou University of Technology, Xuzhou 221018, China; School of Environment Science and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resources Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China. Electronic address: hjy_hj@hhu.edu.cn.

PMID: 33736173
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145451

Abstract

Tire wear particles (TWP), as the significant proportion of microplastics (MPs), has adsorbed much attention due to its widespread presence in aquatic ecosystem. However, compared with traditional MPs, few studies have investigated the interaction between TWP and coexisting contaminants. The adsorption-desorption behavior of chlortetracycline (CTC) and amoxicillin (AMX) by original and aged TWP was studied, and polyethylene (PE) was studied for comparison. After aging, small holes and cracks were produced on the surfaces of the TWP and PE. Meanwhile, the specific surface areas (S_BET) of TWP and PE increased, but the aged TWP had a larger S_BET than the aged PE, which indicated that TWP was more likely to degrade than PE. The adsorption kinetics results showed that the adsorption of CTC and AMX by TWP and PE conformed to the pseudo-second-order model. The adsorption isotherm results showed that the Freundlich model could describe the adsorption isotherm data of TWP and PE. The adsorption capacity of antibiotics by TWP increased by 1.13-23.40 times, and by 1.08-14.24 times on PE, after aging. Desorption experiments showed that the desorption amount of antibiotics on TWP and PE in simulated gastric fluid was greater than that in ultrapure water. The desorption amount and rate of CTC and AMX from TWP were higher than those of PE, indicating that TWP might be more harmful to the aquatic environment and organisms. These findings indicated that, compared with PE, TWP might have stronger carrier effects on antibiotics, which might pose more serious potential risks to the aquatic environment and organisms, especially considering the effects of the aging process. This study would expand the research on environmental risk of MPs and contribute to providing new insights into the evaluation of tire material particles.

Keywords: Adsorption; Aging process; Antibiotics; Desorption; Tire wear particles.

MeSH terms

Adsorption
Anti-Bacterial Agents
Ecosystem
Microplastics*
Plastics
Polyethylene
Water Pollutants, Chemical* / analysis

Substances

Anti-Bacterial Agents
Microplastics
Plastics
Water Pollutants, Chemical
Polyethylene