PMID- 38232551
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20240208
LR  - 20240208
IS  - 1873-3336 (Electronic)
IS  - 0304-3894 (Linking)
VI  - 465
DP  - 2024 Mar 5
TI  - Revealing the long-term impact of photodegradation and fragmentation on HDPE in 
      the marine environment: Origins of microplastics and dissolved organics.
PG  - 133509
LID - S0304-3894(24)00087-6 [pii]
LID - 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133509 [doi]
AB  - The extensive usage of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) materials in marine 
      environments raises concerns about their potential contribution to plastic 
      pollution. Various factors contribute to the degradation of HDPE in marine 
      environments, including UV radiation, seawater hydrolysis, biodegradation, and 
      mechanical stress. Despite their supposed long lifespans, there is still a lack 
      of understanding about the long-term degradation mechanisms that cause weathering 
      of seawater-exposed HDPE products. In this research, the impact of UV radiation 
      on the degradation of HDPE pile sleeves was studied in natural as well as 
      laboratory settings to isolate the UV effect. After nine years of exposure to the 
      marine environment in natural settings, the HDPE pile sleeves exhibited an 
      increase in oxygen-containing surface functional groups and more morphological 
      changes compared to accelerated UVB irradiation in the laboratory. This indicated 
      that combined non-UV mechanisms may play a major role in HDPE degradation than UV 
      irradiation alone. However, UVB irradiation was found to release dissolved 
      organic carbon and total dissolved nitrogen from HDPE pile sleeves, reaching 
      levels of up to 15 mg/L and 2 mg/L, respectively. Our findings underscore the 
      significance of taking into account both UV and non-UV degradation mechanisms 
      when evaluating the role of HDPE in contributing to marine plastic pollution.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
FAU - Ghanadi, Mahyar
AU  - Ghanadi M
AD  - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, 
      Auckland 1010, New Zealand.
FAU - Padhye, Lokesh P
AU  - Padhye LP
AD  - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, 
      Auckland 1010, New Zealand. Electronic address: l.padhye@auckland.ac.nz.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20240112
PL  - Netherlands
TA  - J Hazard Mater
JT  - Journal of hazardous materials
JID - 9422688
RN  - 0 (Microplastics)
RN  - 0 (Plastics)
RN  - 9002-88-4 (Polyethylene)
SB  - IM
MH  - *Microplastics
MH  - *Plastics
MH  - Polyethylene/metabolism
MH  - Photolysis
MH  - Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Additives
OT  - Fragmentation
OT  - HDPE
OT  - Marine environment
OT  - Photodegradation
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- 2024/01/18 00:42
MHDA- 2024/02/08 06:43
CRDT- 2024/01/17 18:07
PHST- 2023/08/03 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2023/12/25 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2024/01/09 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2024/02/08 06:43 [medline]
PHST- 2024/01/18 00:42 [pubmed]
PHST- 2024/01/17 18:07 [entrez]
AID - S0304-3894(24)00087-6 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133509 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - J Hazard Mater. 2024 Mar 5;465:133509. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133509. Epub 
      2024 Jan 12.