Photochemical Transformation of Nicotine in Wastewater Effluent

Nicotine is a highly toxic tobacco alkaloid that is ubiquitous in wastewater effluent. For the first time, we report the identification of the products and the pathways for the photodegradation of nicotine in an effluent matrix under simulated solar irradiation. Nicotine was found to be degraded by triplet-state organic matter (³OM*), thus indicating that electron transfer is a preferred reaction mechanism. Using the multivariate statistical strategies orthogonal projection to latent structures discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and hierarchical clustering, 49 potential transformation products (TPs) of nicotine were successfully extracted from the water matrix via high-resolution ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS). Overall, 30 TPs, including 4 groups of nonseparated isomeric photo TPs, were identified with various levels of confidence based on the tandem mass spectrometry information on standard compounds and the isotope-labeling method (using rac-nicotine-2',3',3'-D₃, rac-nicotine-¹³CD₃, and rac-nicotine-D₄) under air-saturated conditions. The pyrrolidine ring of nicotine was found to be the reactive site under sunlight irradiation. Pseudooxynicotine was the main primary TP from nicotine, with a maximum transformation ratio of 64%. Nicotinic acid, cotinine, 3'-hydroxycotinine, and myosmine were the final stable TPs after 72 h of solar irradiation, with yields of 13%, 3%, 5%, and 5%, respectively.