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

近年来，合成聚合物作为环境污染物受到了高度关注。迄今为止，科学工作主要集中在水生环境中宏观和微观塑料颗粒的发生上。然而，迄今为止，水溶性或溶解性聚合物一直被忽视，尽管它们被大量生产、使用并最终被大量排放。此外，已知它们在环境条件下是稳定的，因此，必须假定污水排放到地表水系统。目前为塑料开发的分析方法仅在很低程度上适用于水溶性聚合物。因此，该项目将侧重于开发一种基于热解方法的适当分析方法，用于量化污水和地表水中的溶解聚合物。因此，溶解的合成聚合物的化学性质以及低环境浓度水平是主要的挑战。在项目的第二部分，我们会应用已开发的分析程序，定量分析有代表性的污水处理厂的进水和出水，以及接收河流系统的样本。获得的结果将是对进入河流系统的水溶性聚合物的总体排放的第一眼，即对污染维度的估计。

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.