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Photodegradation mechanisms of acyclovir in water and the toxicity of photoproducts

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Abstract

Acyclovir (ACV), an anti-virus drug, was widely detected in natural water at concentrations ranging from ng L−1 to μg L−1 due to inefficient biological treatments in sewage treatment plant. Photochemical experiments involving the irradiation from a xenon lamp simulating sunlight were conducted to explore the environmental behavior and potential risks of ACV. Isopropanol was used as a radical trapping agent for mechanism research, and the toxicity of the photoproducts of ACV was evaluated by the acute toxicity test of Photobacterium phosphoreum T3 spp. The results indicated that the ACV photodegradation followed pseudo first-order reaction kinetics, and the ACV removal rate increased when the pH was elevated from 5 to 10. The photochemical reaction pathway revealed by HPLC–MS/MS suggested that the C–C bond and C–N bond of ACV could be attacked by ·OH; thus, the photoproducts were mostly composed of hydroxyl substitution products. The intermediate photoproducts in the course of photodegradation exhibited a higher toxicity than the parent ACV, and the highest toxicity effect was observed at 6 h, which implied that the photoproducts of ACV might pose a great potential risk on aquatic environments.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (2016A030313697) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21377031, 41573094, 21677040).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, No. 100 Waihuan Xi Road, Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center, Panyu District, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Tian-Cong Jia, Jin-Tao Guo, Zhen Wang, Qian-Xin Zhang, Ping Chen, Kun Yao, Wen-Ying Lv & Guo-Guang Liu

  2. Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, China

    Xiao-Shan Zhu

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  1. Tian-Cong Jia
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  2. Jin-Tao Guo
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Correspondence to Kun Yao or Wen-Ying Lv.

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Jia, TC., Guo, JT., Wang, Z. et al. Photodegradation mechanisms of acyclovir in water and the toxicity of photoproducts. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 320, 823–830 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06543-4

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