Determination of water-soluble synthetic polymers in waste and surface waters

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Synthetic polymers as environmental contaminants received a very high attention in the past years. The scientific efforts focused so far dominantly on the occurrence of macro- and microplastic particles in the aquatic environment. However, water soluble or dissolved polymers have been neglected so far, although they are produced, used and consequently discharged in high quantities. Additionally, they are known to be stable under environmental conditions and, consequently, an emission towards surface water systems by sewage effluents has to be assumed.Analytical approaches currently developed for plastics are transferable only to a very low extent to water-soluble polymers. Hence, this project will focus on the development of an appropriate analytical approach based on pyrolysis methods for quantifying dissolved polymers in sewage and surface water. The chemical properties of dissolved synthetic polymers as well as the low environmental concentration levels are hereby the main challenges. In a second part of the project, influents and effluents of representative waste water treatment plants as well as samples from receiving river systems will be analyzed quantitatively by applying the developed analytical procedure. The obtained results will be a first glance on the overall discharge of water-soluble polymers into river systems, i.e. an estimation of the pollution dimension.