Interface behavior changes of weathered polystyrene with ciprofloxacin in seawater environment

Abstract

With the progress of research on micro-nano plastics, the weathering degradation process in the natural environment has gradually become the focus of academic discussion. This study adopted the Fenton immersion method to accelerate the simulation of the weathering process of microplastics in nature, and explored the interface behavior of the weathered microplastics and hydrophilic antibiotics. It was found that the weathered polystyrene (PS) has a smaller crystallinity, increased oxygen-containing functional groups, and cracks appear on the surface, making it more likely to be weathered. At the same time, the rougher surface and stronger hydrophilicity of the weathered PS particles made it easier to adsorb hydrophilic antibiotics. Subsequent studies showed that the adsorption of ciprofloxacin (CIP·HCl) by weathered PS is much larger than that of original PS particles, whose maximum adsorption is 5.45 mg/g in the isotherm experiments. We found that the adsorption behavior of weathered PS particles with CIP in seawater would be weakened in the real seawater environment and humic acid, which might be due to the competitive adsorption of CIP by various ions. Further studies have shown that changes in the ionic strength and pH of the solution also affected the adsorption behavior to varying degrees. The results of dynamic adsorption were the same as the static adsorption, and the adsorption rate and capacity of weathered PS particles were enhanced compared with the original particles. The results of this article not only provided a data reference for studying the weathering process of microplastics but also helped to explore the ultimate fate of microplastics.