GEOCHEMICAL FATE AND TRANSPORT OF SILDENAFIL AND VARDENAFIL

Abstract:

The geochemical fate of pharmaceuticals and their degradation products is a developing environmental field. The geologic, chemical, and biological fate of these pollutants has become very relevant with the increase in human population and the resulting increase in pollutant concentrations in the environment. In this study, we focus on sildenafil (SDF) and vardenafil (VDF), active compounds in Viagra and Levitra, respectively, two commonly used erectile dysfunction drugs. The main objective is to determine the sorption potential and transport behavior of these two compounds in natural soils. Both SDF and VDF are complex organic molecules with multiple amine functional groups in their structures. Two types of natural acidic soils (pH≈4.5), an organic-rich soil (7.6% OM) and clay-rich soil (5.1% clay) were used in this study to determine which soil components influence sorption behavior of both compounds.

Sorption isotherms measured using batch reactors were nearly linear, but sorption was stronger in soil that contained higher clay content. Both compounds have multiple pKas due to the amine functional groups, the relevant pKas of SDF are 5.97 and 7.27, and those of VDF’s are 4.72 and 6.21. These values indicate that these compounds likely behave as cations in soil suspensions and hence were strongly sorbed to negatively-charged clay minerals present in both soils. The clay composition in both soils is predominantly kaolinite with smaller amount of montmorillonite, both of which have a predominantly negative surface charge. Transport experiments using glass chromatography columns indicated that both compounds were more strongly retarded in the clay-rich soils. Breakthrough curves from the transport experiments were modeled using convection-dispersion transport equations. The organic matter in the soil seemed to play a less dominant role in the geochemistry in this study, but is likely to transform both compounds into derivative compounds as seen in other studies.