Abstract

Recovery and reuse of nutrients is a major challenge in agriculture. A new process contributing to a circular economy is the anaerobic digestion of food waste, which is a sustainable way of recycling nutrients as the digestate can be used as fertiliser in agriculture and horticulture. However, the digestate may be polluted with contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) that can be circulated back into the food chain, posing a risk to the environment and human health. In this work, the nutrient solution was spiked with 18 selected CECs frequently detected in food waste biogas facilities, and subsequent uptake and fate of these CECs were evaluated in pak choi grown in two different nutrient solutions (mineral and organic). All spiked compounds except two (propylpar-aben, fenbendazole) were taken up by pak choi plants, with perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA) and sertraline dis-playing the highest concentrations (270 and 190 mu g/kg fresh weight, respectively). There were no statistically significant differences in uptake between mineral and organic nutrient solutions. Uptake of per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) was negatively correlated with perfluorocarbon chain length and dependent on the functional group (r =-0.73). Sixteen transformation products (TPs) were tentatively identified using suspect screening, most of which were Phase II or even Phase III metabolites. Six of these TPs were identified for the first time in plant metabolism and their metabolic pathways were considered.

Keywords

CECs; Uptake; Crops; Transformation products; Suspect screening; PFAS; Pharmaceuticals; Parabens

Published in

Environmental Pollution
2023, Volume: 319, article number: 120958

SLU Authors

• Sunyer Caldú, Adriá

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC)

• Golovko, Oksana

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Kaczmarek, Michal

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Asp, Håkan

  • Department of Biosystems and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Bergstrand, Karl-Johan

  • Department of Biosystems and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Ahrens, Lutz

  • Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Hultberg, Malin

  • Department of Biosystems and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG2 Zero hunger
SDG12 Responsible consumption and production


UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences
Other Biological Topics


Publication Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2022.120958

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/120556