Abstract
Glyphosate (GLP) is one of the most widely applied herbicides, and is found ubiquitously in the environment. The removal of glyphosate from waste water and soil is challenging and can be achieved with chemical or biological methods, which, nevertheless, suffer from different disadvantages. The application of a physical plasma for the removal of GLP in water was examined by the application of surface corona discharges in a wire-to-cylinder setup filled with argon. The plasma was ignited at the liquid surface without any additives. By applying a photometric method, GLP was detected after derivatisation with fluorenyl methoxycarbonyl chloride, whereas phosphate was determined with ammonium molybdate. A GLP degradation rate of 90.8% could be achieved within a treatment time of 30 minutes with an estimated energy efficiency of 0.32 g/kWh.
Highlights
The herbicide glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine, GLP) is one of the most important agrochemicals in the world, with an annual global use of over 1 million tonnes of the active ingredient (Richmond 2018)
The application of a physical plasma for the removal of GLP in water was examined by the application of surface corona discharges in a wire-to-cylinder setup filled with argon
Glyphosate The evaluation of the calibration series showed a level of detection (LOD) of 0.95 μmol GLP/L (0.16 mg GLP/L) and a level of quantitation (LOQ) of 1.83 μmol GLP/L (0.31 mg/L)
Summary
The herbicide glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine, GLP) is one of the most important agrochemicals in the world, with an annual global use of over 1 million tonnes of the active ingredient (Richmond 2018). Different environmental compartments favour its environmental distribution and environmental behaviour such as strong sorption (Glass 1987; Borggaard & Gimsing 2008), rapid microbial degradation within several days (Tang et al 2019), and low toxic risk for non-target organisms. GLP shows a slow chemical reactivity, which affects analytical detection (Gros et al 2019) and chemical degradation abilities (Balci et al 2009; Wang et al 2019). The interaction of GLP with organic substances (e.g. amines, carbohydrates, phenols) increases their toxicity (Tesfamariam et al 2009). The compound interferes in chemical reactions as matrix constituents (Ahmed et al 2018) and may favour their leaching through the soil (Gros et al 2017)
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