Quantitative assessment of additive leachates in abiotic weathered tire cryogrinds and its application to tire wear particles in roadside soil samples

Jomin Thomas; Teresa Cutright; Coleen Pugh; Mark D Soucek

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.137132

Quantitative assessment of additive leachates in abiotic weathered tire cryogrinds and its application to tire wear particles in roadside soil samples

Chemosphere. 2023 Jan;311(Pt 2):137132. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.137132. Epub 2022 Nov 4.

Authors

Jomin Thomas¹, Teresa Cutright², Coleen Pugh³, Mark D Soucek¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, OH, 44325, USA.
² Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering and Polymer Science, University of Akron, Akron, OH, 44325, USA. Electronic address: tcutrig@uakron.edu.
³ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, 67260, USA.

PMID: 36343731
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.137132

Abstract

Tire and road wear particles (TRWP) are becoming an important research question with potential risks on ecological system. A comprehensive understanding of their detection and quantification in soils are challenged by the inherent technological inconsistencies, lack of well-set standardized methods, and generalized protocols. Reference tire cryogrinds were subjected to abiotic weathering. Next, the total environmental availability from parent elastomers and the release of additives from tire tread compounds were evaluated using mass concentration factors obtained from abiotic weathered tire cryogrinds. Headspace Gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (HS-GC-MS) was employed as a nontargeted, suspect screening analysis technique to identify the tire related intermediates. Benzothiazole, 1,2-dihydro-2,2,4-trimethylquinoline (TMQ), aniline, phenol and benzoic acid were detected as tire tetrahydrofuran leachates. Total environmental availability of TMQ and benzothiazole were in the range of 1.7 × 10^-3 and 0.11, respectively. Benzene and benzoic acid derivatives were identified as marker compounds for environmental samples. A TRWP content evaluation was made possible by quantifying marker concentrations and reference tire cryogrind formulation. TRWP content in the size range of 1-5 mm was between 800 and 1300 μg/g and 1200-3100 μg/g TRWP in Ohio and Kansas soil. For TRWP less than 1 mm, 0.15-2.1 wt% content was observed in Kansas and Ohio samples and were seemingly dependent on the locations and the traffic. This simple, widely applicable quantification method for TRWP analysis provides a database of tire degradation and TRWP intermediates. The TRWP content research is critical for further TRWP research development in terrestrial environment.

Keywords: Benzothiazole sulfenamide; Dihydroquinoline; HS-GC-MS; Quantification; Tire and road wear particles.