Cetirizine, a popular antihistamine, has been detected in surface waters and wastewater treatment eluents. Although the details of the specific hazards of exposure to low-concentrations of cetirizine have yet to be reported, it’s strong biological activity suggest it will also have an adverse impact on aqua-species. Cetirizine is readily degraded by a first order process upon ultrasonic irradiation, as a result of both pyrolysis and hydroxyl radical oxidation. The degradation process followed pseudo-first order kinetics. Modeling with Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetics yields a reactivity constant k<sub>r</sub> = 1.64 µmol/(L×min), and partitioning constant K= 0.10 L/µmol. The addition of hydroxyl radical scavengers was conducted to assess the contributions of hydroxyl radical oxidation in the degradation process. The results indicate that hydroxyl radical oxidation leads to approximately 50 % of the observed ultrasonic induced degradation of cetirizine and occurs primarily at the gas-liquid interface with a small portion occurring in the bulk solution. Comparison of results under oxygen and argon saturated conditions indicated pyrolysis also plays in the degradation. The reaction mechanism was proposed and degradation products were confirmed by LC-MS methods. We herein report that ultrasound remediation is a rapid and effective method to remove cetirizine from contaminated water.

Fundamental studies of ultrasound induced degradation of a popular antihistamine, cetirizine

255th National Meeting (2018)

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