Adsorption of emerging micropollutants on tire wear particles

The aim of this study was to investigate the sorption behavior of tire wear particles (TWP), that represent a significant fraction of microplastics (MP) in aquatic environment. Two emerging micropollutants frequently detected in aquatic environment, bisphenol A and 1H-benzotriazole, were used as model compounds. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to study kinetics and thermodynamic equilibrium as well as the effect of pH and ionic strength. Moreover, the impact of three aging processes, photoaging, chemical aging and biological aging on sorption behavior of TWPs was also studied. For comparison, similar experiments were conducted using polyethylene (PE), a microplastic consistently detected in aquatic environment. TWP exhibited higher adsorption tendency for BPA compared to BT. Photoaging of TWP enhanced the adsorption of target compounds. Bioaging and chemically aging significantly reduced the adsorption of BPA. Salinity affects negatively the adsorption of both compounds. TWP exhibited sorption behavior for BPA and BT comparable to polyethylene suggesting similar environmental risk as carriers of these micropollutants. © 2025 Elsevier B.V.