Endocrine disrupting compounds in the baby's world - A harmful environment to the health of babies.

Globally, there has been a significant increase in awareness of the adverse effects of chemicals with known or suspected endocrine-acting properties on human health. Human exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) mainly occurs by ingestion and to some extent by inhalation and dermal uptake. Although it is difficult to assess the full impact of human exposure to EDCs, it is well known that timing of exposure is of importance and therefore infants are more vulnerable to EDCs and are at greater risk compared to adults. In this regard, infant safety and assessment of associations between prenatal exposure to EDCs and growth during infancy and childhood has been received considerable attention in the last years. Hence, the purpose of this review is to provide a current update on the evidence from biomonitoring studies on the exposure of infants to EDCs and a comprehensive view of the uptake, the mechanisms of action and biotransformation in baby/human body. Analytical methods used and concentration levels of EDCs in different biological matrices (e.g., placenta, cord plasma, amniotic fluid, breast milk, urine, and blood of pregnant women) are also discussed. Finally, key issues and recommendations were provided to avoid hazardous exposure to these chemicals, taking into account family and lifestyle factors related to this exposure.

Ionic liquid-based functionalized materials for analytical chemistry.

Inherent in the use of almost any analytical technique is the need to improve the separation efficiency and extract purity. One possibility for enhancing analytical methods is the application of substances / materials that functionalize components of the separation system. They interact with the material to be modified, either permanently or temporarily. Typically, organic solvents or salts are used for this purpose. The ionic liquids (ILs) are salts that remain in the liquid phase at temperatures below 100 ℃, what gives them advantage compared to traditional modifiers. This paper presents the range of applications of ILs in functionalized materials in analytical chemistry, as presented in publications from the last five years. Several types of techniques in which ILs are used are presented (HPLC, GC, electrophoresis, supported liquid membranes, passive sampling, various modification of solid-phase extraction), along with most interesting exemplary studies. As expected, imidazolium ILs are most commonly used. The application of ILs for functionalization in analytical techniques is extremely useful, but the problem is their cost and the low recovery rate. However, the rapid development in this field of science and the promising results encourage further work on the issue of ILs in functionalized materials.

Limitations of Integrative Passive Samplers as a Tool for the Quantification of Pharmaceuticals in the Environment - A Critical Review with the Latest Innovations.

This review starts with a presentation of the theory of kinetic uptake by passive sampling (PS), which is traditionally used to distinguish between integrative and equilibrium samplers. Demonstrated limitations of this model for the passive sampling of pharmaceuticals from water were presented. Most notably, the contribution of the protective membrane in the resistance to mass transfer of lipophilic analytes and the well documented effect of external parameters on sampling rates contributed to the greatest uncertainty in PS application. The diffusion gradient in thin layer (DGT) technique seems to reduce the effect of external parameters (e.g., flow rate) to some degree. The laboratory-determined integrative uptake periods over defined sampler deployments was compared, and the discrepancy found suggests that the most popular Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Sampler (POCIS) could in some cases utilized as an equilibrium sampler. This assertion is supported by own calculations for three pharmaceuticals with extremely different lipophilic characters. Finally, the reasons performance reference compounds (PRCs) are not recommended for the reduction in uncertainty of the TWAC found by adsorptive samplers were presented. It was concluded that techniques of passive sampling of pharmaceuticals need a new uptake model to fit the current situation.

Critical study of crop-derived biochars for soil amendment and pharmaceutical ecotoxicity reduction.

In this study, biochars (BCs) produced from crops (straw and seeds) were tested for the applicability as additive to soils. The effect on pH, water capacity and cation exchange capacity of soil were tested. The ability for the sorption of pharmaceuticals (beta-blockers, anti-inflammatory drugs, sulfonamides, 17α-ethinylestradiol, carbamazepine, caffeine) using the batch sorption test was performed, and the effect of water pH was investigated. In addition, the metals removed from the biochar was analyzed as a potential toxicity factor. The mechanism of adsorption (Langmuir, Freundlich) was tested for sulfadimetoxine. The effect of the rye-derived biochar on water cress germination and the reduction of the sulfonamides toxicity to this plant was tested. The advantages of crop-derived biochar application to different soils (sand soil, clay soil and reference soil) was presented. It was found that tested BCs effectively increase the water capacity of soils, especially sand type soil, but in the same time it had increase the pH of pure-buffering soils. The driving force of pharmaceutical sorption was its ionization form - the highest sorption occurs for cations, medium for neutral forms, while the lowest sorption for anions. The opposite situation have been noted for desorption from biochar. The washing of biochars increases sorption for the neutral and anionic species, but not for the cations. The application of biochars into the soils can from one site protect the plants from toxic impact of sulfonamides, but from the other hamper the root prolongation by the pH increase.

Salinity and pH as factors affecting the passive sampling and extraction of pharmaceuticals from water.

Passive sampling is an attractive technique for the long-term monitoring of pharmaceuticals in the water environment. The reliability of the received results depends on the properly performed calibration, namely the determination of analyte sampling rates. This step can be the source of a systematic error, as the sampling rate values are dependent on the water donor phase parameters. This is especially important for pharmaceuticals, since their chemical characteristics and ionic form change with pH. In this study, the cross-effect of pH (3, 7, and 9) and salinity (0, 7, and 35 practical salinity unit, using artificial sea water) on the passive sampling of 21 pharmaceuticals (antiparasitics, beta-blockers, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, sulfonamides) was tested. The primarily determined parameter was the sampling rate. In addition, the extraction efficiency, partitioning coefficient, and the concentration of the analytes on the sorbent were calculated. Generally, for the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, beta-blockers, and antiparasitics, the change both in pH and salinity had a negligible impact on the mentioned experimental parameters. In contrast, the extraction of sulfonamides was impacted by both pH and salinity, while lipophilicity was not a decisive parameter.