The utilization of plastic pipes has increased during the past 10 years as a result of their favorable properties. Nowadays, they are exploited for many purposes, including distribution of drinking water. However, the high content of additives employed to improve the quality of the plastic pipes has caused alarm due to the risk of their migration from the material to the drinking water and the impact of these substances on the health of the public and the environment. This study assesses the quality of materials intended to be used in contact with drinking water in terms of the amount and toxicity of leachable substances.<br/>Widely used materials have been selected, characterized and analyzed their extractable and leachable compounds. For this purpose, a set of different methods have been tested to effectively extract and concentrate the additives from plastic pipes, including solvent extraction and solid phase extraction. The migrated components have been identified with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and classified in terms of their toxicity, which leads to a quality assessment of each material.<br/>This research is able to demonstrate the presence of toxic extractable components in plastic materials intended to be used in contact with drinking water along with a methodology to evaluate the risk of their migration and quantify the quality of the materials in terms of this risk.

Migrant substance study of plastic materials in drinking water

ACS Fall 2020 Virtual Meeting

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