Insights into the Time Evolution of Slowly Photodegrading Contaminants

Overview

Journal Molecules

Publisher MDPI

Specialty Biology

Date 2021 Sep 10

PMID 34500658

Citations 1

Authors

Davide Vione

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Photochemical degradation plays an important role in the attenuation of many recalcitrant pollutants in surface freshwaters. Photoinduced transformation kinetics are strongly affected by environmental conditions, where sunlight irradiance plays the main role, followed by water depth and dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Apart from poorly predictable weather-related issues, fair-weather irradiance has a seasonal trend that results in the fastest photodegradation in June and the slowest in December (at least in temperate areas of the northern hemisphere). Pollutants that have first-order photochemical lifetimes longer than a week take more than one month to achieve 95% photodegradation. Consequently, they may experience quite different irradiance conditions as their photodegradation goes on. The relevant time trend can be approximated as a series of first-order kinetic tracts, each lasting for one month. The trend considerably departs from an overall exponential decay, if degradation takes long enough to encompass seasonally varying irradiance conditions. For instance, sunlight irradiance is higher in July than in April, but increasing irradiance after April and decreasing irradiance after July ensure that pollutants emitted in either month undergo degradation with very similar time trends in the first 3-4 months after emission. If photodegradation takes longer, pollutants emitted in July experience a considerable slowdown in photoreaction kinetics as winter is approached. Therefore, if pollutants are photostable enough that their photochemical time trend evolves over different seasons, degradation acquires some peculiar features than cannot be easily predicted from a mere analysis of lifetimes in the framework of simple first-order kinetics. Such features are here highlighted with a modelling approach, taking the case of carbamazepine as the main example. This contaminant is almost totally biorecalcitrant, and it is also quite resistant to photodegradation.

Citing Articles

Photochemical Implications of Changes in the Spectral Properties of Chromophoric Dissolved Organic Matter: A Model Assessment for Surface Waters.

Altare N, Vione D Molecules. 2023; 28(6).

PMID: 36985638 PMC: 10055727. DOI: 10.3390/molecules28062664.

References

Guillet G, Knapp J, Merel S, Cirpka O, Grathwohl P, Zwiener C . Fate of wastewater contaminants in rivers: Using conservative-tracer based transfer functions to assess reactive transport. Sci Total Environ. 2019; 656:1250-1260. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.379. View

McNeill K, Canonica S . Triplet state dissolved organic matter in aquatic photochemistry: reaction mechanisms, substrate scope, and photophysical properties. Environ Sci Process Impacts. 2016; 18(11):1381-1399. DOI: 10.1039/c6em00408c. View

Vione D, Minella M, Maurino V, Minero C . Indirect photochemistry in sunlit surface waters: photoinduced production of reactive transient species. Chemistry. 2014; 20(34):10590-606. DOI: 10.1002/chem.201400413. View

Koehler B, Barsotti F, Minella M, Landelius T, Minero C, Tranvik L . Simulation of photoreactive transients and of photochemical transformation of organic pollutants in sunlit boreal lakes across 14 degrees of latitude: A photochemical mapping of Sweden. Water Res. 2017; 129:94-104. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2017.10.064. View

Tixier C, Singer H, Oellers S, Muller S . Occurrence and fate of carbamazepine, clofibric acid, diclofenac, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, and naproxen in surface waters. Environ Sci Technol. 2003; 37(6):1061-8. DOI: 10.1021/es025834r. View

Calisto V, Domingues M, Erny G, Esteves V . Direct photodegradation of carbamazepine followed by micellar electrokinetic chromatography and mass spectrometry. Water Res. 2010; 45(3):1095-104. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2010.10.037. View

Zou H, Radke M, Kierkegaard A, MacLeod M, McLachlan M . Using chemical benchmarking to determine the persistence of chemicals in a Swedish lake. Environ Sci Technol. 2015; 49(3):1646-53. DOI: 10.1021/es505548k. View

Rosario-Ortiz F, Canonica S . Probe Compounds to Assess the Photochemical Activity of Dissolved Organic Matter. Environ Sci Technol. 2016; 50(23):12532-12547. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b02776. View

Remucal C . The role of indirect photochemical degradation in the environmental fate of pesticides: a review. Environ Sci Process Impacts. 2014; 16(4):628-53. DOI: 10.1039/c3em00549f. View

10.

Vione D . A Critical View of the Application of the APEX Software (Aqueous Photochemistry of Environmentally-Occurring Xenobiotics) to Predict Photoreaction Kinetics in Surface Freshwaters. Molecules. 2019; 25(1). PMC: 7017383. DOI: 10.3390/molecules25010009. View

11.

Minella M, Leoni B, Salmaso N, Savoye L, Sommaruga R, Vione D . Long-term trends of chemical and modelled photochemical parameters in four Alpine lakes. Sci Total Environ. 2015; 541:247-256. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.08.149. View

12.

Zou H, Radke M, Kierkegaard A, McLachlan M . Temporal Variation of Chemical Persistence in a Swedish Lake Assessed by Benchmarking. Environ Sci Technol. 2015; 49(16):9881-8. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b01720. View

13.

Yan S, Song W . Photo-transformation of pharmaceutically active compounds in the aqueous environment: a review. Environ Sci Process Impacts. 2014; 16(4):697-720. DOI: 10.1039/c3em00502j. View

14.

Castiglioni S, Bagnati R, Fanelli R, Pomati F, Calamari D, Zuccato E . Removal of pharmaceuticals in sewage treatment plants in Italy. Environ Sci Technol. 2006; 40(1):357-63. DOI: 10.1021/es050991m. View

15.

Avetta P, Fabbri D, Minella M, Brigante M, Maurino V, Minero C . Assessing the phototransformation of diclofenac, clofibric acid and naproxen in surface waters: Model predictions and comparison with field data. Water Res. 2016; 105:383-394. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2016.08.058. View

16.

Vione D, Encinas A, Fabbri D, Calza P . A model assessment of the potential of river water to induce the photochemical attenuation of pharmaceuticals downstream of a wastewater treatment plant (Guadiana River, Badajoz, Spain). Chemosphere. 2018; 198:473-481. DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2018.01.156. View

17.

Zhang N, Li J, Liu G, Chen X, Jiang K . Photodegradation of diclofenac in aqueous solution by simulated sunlight irradiation: kinetics, thermodynamics and pathways. Water Sci Technol. 2017; 75(9-10):2163-2170. DOI: 10.2166/wst.2017.075. View

18.

Konstantinou I, Zarkadis A, Albanis T . Photodegradation of selected herbicides in various natural waters and soils under environmental conditions. J Environ Qual. 2001; 30(1):121-30. DOI: 10.2134/jeq2001.301121x. View

19.

Apell J, McNeill K . Updated and validated solar irradiance reference spectra for estimating environmental photodegradation rates. Environ Sci Process Impacts. 2019; 21(3):427-437. DOI: 10.1039/c8em00478a. View

20.

Kovacic M, Juretic Perisic D, Biosic M, Kusic H, Babic S, Loncaric Bozic A . UV photolysis of diclofenac in water; kinetics, degradation pathway and environmental aspects. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2016; 23(15):14908-17. DOI: 10.1007/s11356-016-6580-x. View