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Kinetic bromine isotope effect: example from the microbial debromination of brominated phenols

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Abstract

The increasing use of kinetic isotope effects for environmental studies has motivated the development of new compound-specific isotope analysis techniques for emerging pollutants. Recently, high-precision bromine isotope analysis in individual brominated organic compounds was proposed, by the coupling of gas chromatography to a multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer using strontium as an external spike for instrumental bias correction. The present study, for the first time, demonstrates an application of this technique for determining bromine kinetic isotope effects during biological reaction, focusing on the reductive debromination of brominated phenols under anaerobic conditions. Results show bromine isotope enrichment factors (ε) of −0.76 ± 0.08, −0.46 ± 0.19, and −0.20 ± 0.06 ‰ for the debromination of 4-bromophenol, 2,4-dibromophenol, and 2,4,6-tribromophenol, respectively. These values are rather low, yet still high enough to be obtained with satisfying certainty. This further implies that the analytical method may be also appropriate for future environmental applications.

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Acknowledgments

The work of A. Bernstein was supported by a generous contribution from Vera Barcza, via the Rosinger-Barcza Family Fund, Toronto, Canada in support of young researchers at the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research. This research was supported by BMBF-MOST grant for cooperation in Water Technology Research, Ministry of Science and Technology of the State of Israel and FZKForschungszentrum Karlsruhe grant Number WT1101. We thank the three anonymous reviewers of this paper for their useful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Department of Environmental Hydrology and Microbiology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, Negev, 84990, Israel

    Anat Bernstein & Zeev Ronen

  2. Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhey Israel st., Jerusalem, 95501, Israel

    Elena Levin, Ludwik Halicz & Faina Gelman

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  1. Anat Bernstein
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  2. Zeev Ronen
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  3. Elena Levin
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  5. Faina Gelman
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Correspondence to Faina Gelman.

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Published in the topical collection Isotope Ratio Measurements: New Developments and Applications with guest editors Klaus G. Heumann and Torsten C. Schmidt.

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Bernstein, A., Ronen, Z., Levin, E. et al. Kinetic bromine isotope effect: example from the microbial debromination of brominated phenols. Anal Bioanal Chem 405, 2923–2929 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-012-6446-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-012-6446-0

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