Photodegradation of antibiotics on soil surfaces: laboratory studies on sulfadiazine in an ozone-controlled environment

Among the processes affecting transport and degradation of antibiotics released to the environment during application of manure and slurry to agricultural land, photochemical transformations are of particular interest. Drying-out of the top soil layer under field conditions enables sorption of surface-applied antibiotics to soil dust, thus facilitating direct, indirect, and sensitized photodegradation at the soil/atmosphere interface. For studying various photochemical transformation processes of sulfadiazine, a photovolatility chamber designed in accordance with the requirements of the USEPA Guideline and 161-3 was used. Application of 14C-labeled sulfadiazine enabled complete mass balances and allowed for investigating the impact of various surfaces (glass and soil dust) and environmental factors, i.e., irradiation and atmospheric ozone, on photodegradation and volatilization. Volatilization was shown to be a negligible process. Even after increasing the air temperature up to 35 degrees C only minor amounts of sulfadiazine and transformation products (0.01-0.28% of applied radioactivity) volatilized. Due to direct and indirect photodegradation, the highest extent of mineralization to 14CO2 (3.9%), the formation of degradation products and of nonextractable soil residues was measured in irradiated soil dust experiments using ozone concentrations of 200 ppb. However, even in the dark significant mineralization was observed when ozone was present, indicating ozone-controlled transformation of sulfadiazine to occur at the soil surface.