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Transport of veterinary medicines from soils to groundwater

Subject Area Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
Term from 2005 to 2013
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5471428
 
Final Report Year 2014

Final Report Abstract

One objective was to study the sorption and desorption behavior of sulfadiazine. Short-and long term sorption experiments were performed with the antibiotic sulfadiazine (SDZ) in the plough layer and the subsoil of a loamy sand (Kaldenkirchen, KAL) and a silty loam (Merzenhausen, MRZ). The parameterization of a two-stage, one-rate sorption model combined with a first-order transformation model showed that sorption of SDZ was nonlinear, time-dependent, and affected by pH, with a higher sorption capacity for the loamy sand. Another objective was to study the transport of veterinary medicines using soil columns with special emphasis on preferential flow, the behavior of 4-hydroxy-sulfadiazine (4-OH-SDZ) and the effect of repeated manuring with sulfadiazine containing piggery waste. No preferential transport or colloid-facilitated transport was observed in any of the column transport studies. An additional (irreversible) sorption site was needed in the model description. Besides chemical interactions, the transport of SDZ was affected by the soils hydraulic behavior, with less leaching for lower infiltration rates. The sorption and kinetic parameters of 4-OH-SDZ were similar to those of SDZ. Repeated application of manure from pigs medicated with 14C-labeled SDZ on soil columns with did not show an influence on the shape of the break through curves and on the formation of transformation products. For yet unknown reasons, the transformation product 4-(2-iminopyrimidin-1(2H)-yl) aniline was only formed in considerable amounts in the absence of manure. By upgrading the two-stage one-rate model of Wehrhan (2010), we were able to describe instantaneous sequestration of sulfadiazine in the residual fraction (RES) obtained by harsh extraction of soil and the non-extractable fraction (NER). One objective was to provide experimental evidence on the occurrence or non-occurrence of antibiotics in the deep leachate of soils using lysimeters under natural weather conditions and to obtain complete balances on the fate of the veterinary medicine sulfadiazine. In the KAL lysimeter leachate we measured on one occasion 7.6 ng/L sulfadiazine together with the breakthrough of the tracer bromide and on 4 occasion’s 2-amino-pyrimidin up to 36 ng/L. The distribution of radioactivity in the upper 30 cm soil profile of the lysimeter showed a further dislocation in deeper soil layers of the 0.5 m2 lysimeter, which was especially the case in the loamy sand soil (KAL). In the silty loam soil (MRZ) we measured a 30 to 40% loss of radioactivity in three years and most of the leftover radioactivity was found in the first 10 cm. Extraction of the soil samples showed a noticeable difference between the KAL and MRZ soil. At day 218, ~50% of the applied radioactivity was found in the NER-fractions for both soils (a value comparable with the results of Forster et al 2009). At day 1022, we still found all applied radioactivity back in the KAL soil, with an increase in the NER fraction. For MRZ, we measured a strong decrease in the RES-fraction, indicating that SDZ and metabolites were possibly mineralized, but also the NER fraction became smaller, indicating that SDZ and metabolites could have become bioavailable from the NER fraction. A batch experiment with 14C-SDZ added to soil from the MRZ lysimeter confirmed that a mineralization of up to 10% of the added SDZ after three months is possible, when incubated at 45% of the max. water holding capacity and up to 50-60%, when incubated as slurry. We could isolate and identify a bacterium capable of partly mineralize sulfadiazine and producing the transformation product 2-amino-pyrimidin. Thus, in contrast to previous results, we have strong evidence that mineralization of SDZ could have been the reason for the loss of radioactivity in the lysimeter experiment and a possible mechanism for a degradation pathway of sulfadiazine in soil.

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