Detecção e degradação fotoquímica de acrilamida residual em água para consumo humano

Abstract

The acrylamide monomer is used mainly for the production of polyacrylamides, flocculation aids used in water supply systems. While its polymeric form does not pose health risks, the World Health Organization warns of the presence of residual acrylamide in flocculants, which would be responsible for releasing this contaminant in tap water. Acrylamide is considered as probably carcinogenic to humans, and has its standard for drinking water set at 0.5 μg L -1 in Brazil and in the United States, and 0.1 μg L-1 in Europe. Given the concern of the possibility of drinking water intake with the presence of acrylamide and lack of constant monitoring of this parameter, the objective of this study was to evaluate the application of photolytic processes for degradation of acrylamide and develop analytical methodology to quantify the acrylamide levels in trait, based on the Brazilian benchmark. The study was conducted following up the following steps: (I) development of bench photolytic reactor in Engineering Laboratory of Environment - LEMA, the Federal University of Santa Maria - UFSM; (II) conducting initial tests of direct photolysis (UV) photolysis combined with hydrogen peroxide (UV / H2O2) and use of hydrogen peroxide in the built reactor; (III) acrylamide analysis of development in the range of 0.5 to 5 mg L-1 via liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection for monitoring the degradation in Environmental Analytical Chemistry Laboratory - LQAA, from the Chemistry Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul - IQ-UFRGS; (IV) adequacy of degradation parameters and carrying out final tests of photolysis with lamp cooled reactor and analysis of results and preparation of the degradation kinetics, the LQAA; (V) defining parameters for most appropriate method of solid phase extraction to acrylamide; and (VI) adequacy of liquid chromatography via acrylamide analysis methodology of high efficiency with ultraviolet detection for a lower concentration range and validation of the method. The results demonstrated that acrylamide is slowly degraded via direct photolysis (k = 0.0143 mg L-1 min-1) and almost instantaneously when adding hydrogen peroxide (UV/H2O2), although alone peroxide has no effect. As for the method SPE according to the literature, active carbon is the most efficient for solid concentration of acrylamide. Thus, activated carbon was used cartridge for this step to give a satisfactory recovery of 72% acrylamide. The method developed via HPLC-UV showed good results as to the validation parameters of standard solutions. Same quality was not obtained when evaluated SPE-HPLC-UV conjunction with real fortified sample, probably due to the large number of possible interferences present in drinking water, coupled with the high solubility of acrylamide and difficulty of retention. The improvement of these analytical conditions should be required to make feasible the use of this method for the analysis of drinking water.