Degradation kinetics and products of triazophos in intertidal sediment

This work presents laboratory studies on the degradation of triazophos in intertidal sediment. The overall degradations were found to follow the first-order decay model. After being incubated for 6 d, the percentage of degradations of triazophos in unsterilized and sterilized sediments were 94.5% and 20.5%, respectively. Between the temperatures of 15 degrees C and 35 degrees C, the observed degradation rate constant (kobsd) enhanced as the incubation temperature increased. Triazophos in sediment degraded faster under aerobic condition than under anaerobic one. The water content of sediment had little influence on the degradation when it was in the range of 50%-100%. The values of kobsd decreased with increasing initial concentration of triazophos in sediment, which could result from the microorganism inhibition by triazophos. Four major degradation products, o, o-diethyl phosphorothioic acid, monoethyl phosphorothioic acid, phosphorothioic acid, and l-phenyl-3-hydroxy-1,2,4-triazole, were tentatively identified as their corresponding trimethylsilyl derivatives with a gas chromato-graphy-mass spectrometer. The possible degradation pathway of triazophos in intertidal sediment was proposed. The results revealed that triazophos in intertidal sediment was relatively unstable and could be easily degraded.