Carbendazim is frequently used to protect outdoor surfaces (facades of buildings), crops and fruits against fungi growth and fungal diseases. However, it is no longer approved as a plant protecting agent in the European Union since December 2014. Therefore, this study assesses the occurrence, sources and fate of carbendazim in German water matrices. Surface water samples were collected from the source to the mouth of the River Rhine during the summer 2014, enriched 100 times and measured by liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS). A retrospective analysis revealed that, shortly before the withdrawal of its approval by the European Union, carbendazim occurred in surface water. However the increasing abundance of carbendazim from upstream to downstream and the positive correlation (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.89) with the abundances of pharmaceuticals suggests that the fungicide is likely to reach surface water through the discharge of treated wastewater effluents. Further analysis of effluents collected during dry period (to avoid input from runoff) from 22 wastewater treatment plants in southwest Germany also revealed the occurrence of carbendazim. This highlights households as unknown source of this fungicide. The use of carbendazim in the production of paper and textiles was considered as a potential explanation to the fungicide occurrence in domestic wastewater effluents. This hypothesis was confirmed by the higher concentration of carbendazim in river samples collected directly downstream of the discharge of treated effluents from paper industries compared to other samples collected upstream. In addition the occurrence of carbendazim in paper (kitchen sorbing paper, newspaper and toilet paper) and textiles (T-shirts, table cloth) was also confirmed by leaching tests in the lab. Given the relevance of carbendazim as contaminant in German water matrices, transformation products of the fungicide were also investigated. Samples from bench-scale electrochemical degradation experiments were analyzed by LC-HRMS. This allowed identification of seven transformation products (TPs). Two major TPs could also be characterized in the Rhine River.

Identification of sources, occurrence and fate of the fungicide carbendazim in water

255th National Meeting (2018)

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