PMID- 37678732 OWN - NLM STAT- MEDLINE DCOM- 20231026 LR - 20231112 IS - 1873-6424 (Electronic) IS - 0269-7491 (Linking) VI - 337 DP - 2023 Nov 15 TI - Effects of water chemistry and flow on lead release from plastic pipes versus copper pipes, implications for plumbing decontamination. PG - 122520 LID - S0269-7491(23)01522-1 [pii] LID - 10.1016/j.envpol.2023.122520 [doi] AB - Despite being corrosion-resistant, plastic potable water pipes might accumulate heavy metals on their surface if they convey metal-contaminated tap water. This study examined the influence of water pH and flow conditions on lead (Pb) release from new and biofilm-laden potable water pipes to provide insights regarding decontamination. For this purpose, biofilms were grown onto new crosslinked polyethylene (PEX-A), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and copper pipes for three months. Lead was then deposited onto the new and biofilm-laden pipes through 5 d exposure experiments under flow conditions. After that, lead release experiments were conducted by exposing the lead-accumulated pipes to lead-free synthetic tap water for 5 d, under both stagnant and water flow conditions. The metal accumulation study showed no significant difference in lead uptake by new pipes and their biofilm-laden counterparts under flow conditions. This could be attributed to the detachment of biofilms that have accumulated lead as water flows through the pipes. Water flow conditions significantly influenced the lead release from new and biofilm-laden water pipes. A lower water pH of 5.0 increased the release of lead from plastic pipes into the contact water, compared to pH 6.0 and 7.8. The greatest percentage of lead was released from biofilm-laden HDPE pipes (5.3%, 120 h) compared to biofilm-laden copper pipes (3.9%, 6 h) and PEX-A (3.7%, 120 h) and after exposure to lead-free synthetic tap water at pH 5.0, under stagnant conditions. On the other hand, under water flow conditions, the greatest lead release was found for new PEX-A pipes (4.4%, 120 h), new HDPE pipes (2.7%, 120 h), and biofilm-laden copper pipes (3.7%, 2 h). CI - Copyright (c) 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. FAU - Ghoochani, Shima AU - Ghoochani S AD - Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA. FAU - Hadiuzzaman, Md AU - Hadiuzzaman M AD - Department of Civil Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA. FAU - Mirza, Nahreen AU - Mirza N AD - Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA. FAU - Brown, Shawn P AU - Brown SP AD - Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA. FAU - Salehi, Maryam AU - Salehi M AD - Department of Civil Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA. Electronic address: mshfp@missouri.edu. LA - eng PT - Journal Article DEP - 20230906 PL - England TA - Environ Pollut JT - Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987) JID - 8804476 RN - 789U1901C5 (Copper) RN - 2P299V784P (Lead) RN - 0 (Drinking Water) RN - 9002-88-4 (Polyethylene) SB - IM MH - *Sanitary Engineering MH - Copper/analysis MH - Lead MH - Water Supply MH - *Drinking Water MH - Polyethylene MH - Decontamination MH - Biofilms OTO - NOTNLM OT - Biofilms OT - Decontamination OT - Drinking water OT - Lead OT - Metal release OT - Plastic pipes COIS- Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. EDAT- 2023/09/08 00:41 MHDA- 2023/10/26 06:42 CRDT- 2023/09/07 19:30 PHST- 2023/06/28 00:00 [received] PHST- 2023/08/25 00:00 [revised] PHST- 2023/09/04 00:00 [accepted] PHST- 2023/10/26 06:42 [medline] PHST- 2023/09/08 00:41 [pubmed] PHST- 2023/09/07 19:30 [entrez] AID - S0269-7491(23)01522-1 [pii] AID - 10.1016/j.envpol.2023.122520 [doi] PST - ppublish SO - Environ Pollut. 2023 Nov 15;337:122520. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2023.122520. Epub 2023 Sep 6.