The effects of salinity, temperature, and UV irradiation on leaching and adsorption of phthalate esters from polyethylene in seawater

Jeyakumar Dhavamani; Aaron J Beck; Martha Gledhill; Mohammad S El-Shahawi; Mohammad W Kadi; Iqbal M I Ismail; Eric P Achterberg

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155461

The effects of salinity, temperature, and UV irradiation on leaching and adsorption of phthalate esters from polyethylene in seawater

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Sep 10;838(Pt 1):155461. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155461. Epub 2022 May 1.

Authors

Jeyakumar Dhavamani¹, Aaron J Beck², Martha Gledhill², Mohammad S El-Shahawi³, Mohammad W Kadi³, Iqbal M I Ismail⁴, Eric P Achterberg⁵

Affiliations

¹ GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel, Wischhofstrasse 1-3, 24148 Kiel, Germany; Center of Excellence in Environmental Studies, King Abdulaziz University, P. O. Box 80200, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia. Electronic address: jdhavamani@geomar.de.
² GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel, Wischhofstrasse 1-3, 24148 Kiel, Germany.
³ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences King Abdulaziz University, P. O. Box 80203, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Center of Excellence in Environmental Studies, King Abdulaziz University, P. O. Box 80200, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel, Wischhofstrasse 1-3, 24148 Kiel, Germany. Electronic address: eachterberg@geomar.de.

PMID: 35508245
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155461

Abstract

In this study, the leaching of six phthalic acid esters (PAEs) from three common consumer plastics was investigated: low and high density polyethylene (LDPE, HDPE) and recycled polyethylene (RP). The effects of salinity, temperature, and ultraviolet irradiation (UVR) on leaching were investigated. The study of leaching of phthalates in aqueous environments in batch experiments is challenging due to their readsorption by the high hydrophobicity of PAEs, and there are no standard methods to study release processes. Here with the experiments, leaching (A) and spiking (B) using six PAEs to study the readsorption in the leaching process. PAEs were identified and quantified using GC-MS. Dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and benzyl butyl phthalate (DEHP) showed considerable leaching during the 5-day incubation: 14 ± 1 to 128 ± 14 and 25 ± 2 to 79 ± 5 ng/cm², respectively, under UVR, corresponding approximately to (1.9-13%) and (12.4-22.4%) of the solvent extracted mass. The highest K_d values were measured for RP polymers (0.3-9.4), followed by LDPE (0.5-5.4) and HDPE (0.2-2.2) polymers. Thus, readsorption of PAEs at the surface removed 30-80% of the leached PAEs in the dissolved phase. For example in LDPE, the calculated total release of DBP was up to 54 ± 4 ng/cm², while the dissolved amount was 8.5 ± 1 ng/cm² during the 5-day incubation under freshwater conditions. Increasing salinity negatively affected the leaching rate, which decreased for DBP from 54 ± 4 ng/cm² in freshwater to 44 ± 3 and 38 ± 3 ng/cm² at salinity of 20 and 40 g/L, respectively, from LDPE during the 5-day incubation. Temperature and UVR had a positive effect on the leaching rate, with the release of DBP from LDPE increasing from 44 ± 3 ng/cm² at room temperature (25 °C) to 60 ± 6 and 128 ± 14 ng/cm² at high temperature (40 °C) and UVR, respectively. Overall, this study highlights the positive relationship between temperatures, UVR on the extent of leaching and surface adsorption on the leaching measurements.

Keywords: GCMS; Leaching; Mass balance calculation; Phthalate esters (PAEs); Re-adsorption; Saltwater; Temperature; UVR.

MeSH terms

Adsorption
Dibutyl Phthalate
Esters*
Phthalic Acids*
Polyethylene
Salinity
Seawater
Temperature

Substances

Esters
Phthalic Acids
Dibutyl Phthalate
phthalic acid
Polyethylene