Bisphenol A degradation in seawater is different from that in river water

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify a relationship between changes of bacterial counts and bisphenol A (BPA) degradation in seawater under aerobic or anaerobic conditions, and at temperatures of 4, 25, and 35 °C. Water samples (seawater and river water) spiked with 1000 ng/ml of BPA was placed for 60 d. The BPA from water samples was extracted by OASIS HLB cartridges and was detected by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection. BPA in river water was degraded under aerobic conditions and was below a detection limit (0.5 ng/ml) on the seventh day at both 25 and 35 °C. The more the level of bacterial counts increased, the more BPA degradation decreased. In the case of seawater samples, there was no relationship between BPA degradation and the change of bacterial counts. Bacterial counts at 25 and 35 °C increased rapidly at 5 and 3 d, respectively, but decreased since then. The concentration of BPA was not changed for 30 d at both 25 and 35 °C, but decreased from 40 to 60 d in spite of low levels of bacteria. These results show that the different degradation way for BPA in seawater may exist. Moreover, our study suggest that BPA in seawater than in river water can continue for longer time with no degradation and the possibility of BPA contamination on a marine organism can be higher than that on freshwater organism.