Geochemical Fate and Transport of Diphenhydramine and Cetirizine in Soil

Abstract:

Pharmaceuticals compounds presence in natural soils and water around the world has become a growing concern. These compounds are being discharged into the environment through treated wastewater or municipal sludge applications. The main goal of this study is determine their geochemical fate in natural soils. In this study we investigated sorption and transport behavior of diphenhydramine (DPH) and cetirizine (CTZ) in natural soils. These two commonly-used antihistamines are complex aromatic hydrocarbons with polar functional groups.

Two clean acidic soils (pH~4.5) were used for these studies – an A-horizon soil that had higher organic matter content (OM, 7.6%) and a B-horizon soil that had lower OM (1.6%), but higher clay content (5.1%). Sorption isotherms were measured using batch reactor experiments. Data indicated that sorption was nonlinear and that it was stronger in clay-rich soils. The pKa’s of DPH and CTZ are 8.98 and 8.27 respectively, i.e., these compounds are predominantly in cationic form at soil pH. In these forms, they preferentially sorb to negatively charged mineral surfaces (e.g., clay) present in the soils. Soil clay mineral characterization indicated that kaolinite was the dominant clay mineral present along with small amount of montmorillonite. The nonlinear sorption isotherms were fitted with Freundlich model.

Transport behavior of both compounds was measured using glass chromatography columns. As expected both DPH and CTZ were strongly retained in the clay-rich soil as compared with OM-rich soil. The asymmetrical shape of the breakthrough curves indicated that there were likely two separate sorption sites in the soil, each with different reaction rates with each compound. A two-region advection-dispersion transport code was used to model the transport breakthrough curves. There was no evidence of transformation or degradation of the compounds during our sorption and transport studies.