Hindered gas-phase partitioning of trichloroethylene from aqueous cyclodextrin systems: implications for treatment and analysis

Enhanced reductive de-chlorination of a solvent contaminated aquifer through addition and apparent fermentation of cyclodextrin

In a field study, aqueous cyclodextrin (CD) was investigated for its ability to extract chlorinated volatile organic compounds (cVOC), such as trichloroethylene (TCE), 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA), and dichloroethene (DCE) through in-situ flushing of a sandy aquifer. After cessation of aquifer flushing, a plume of CD was left. Changes in CD, cVOC, and inorganic terminal electron acceptors (TEAs) (DO, nitrate, sulfate, iron) were monitored in four rounds of wellwater sampling (20, 210, 342, and 425days after cessation of active pumping). Post-CD flushing VOC levels rebounded (850% for TCE, 190% for TCA, and 53% for DCE) between the first two sampling rounds, apparently due to rate-limited desorption from aquifer media and dissolution from remaining NAPL. However, substantial reduction in the mass of TCE (6.3 to 0.11mol: 98%) and TCA (2.8 to 0.73mol: 74%) in groundwater was observed between 210 and 425days. DCE should primarily be produced from the degradation of TCE and is expected to subsequently degrade to chloroethene. Since DCE levels decreased only slightly (0.23 to 0.17mol: 26%), its degradation rate should be similar to that produced from the decaying TCE. Cyclodextrin was monitored starting from day 210. The mass of residual CD (as measured by Total Organic Carbon) decreased from 150mol (day 210) to 66 (day 425) (56% decrease). The naturally anaerobic zone within the aquifer where residual CD mass decreased coincided with a loss of other major potential TEAs: nitrate (97% loss), sulfate (31%) and iron (31%). In other studies, TCE and 1,1,1-TCA have been found to be more energetically favorable TEAs than sulfate and iron and their degradation via reductive dechlorination has been found to be enhanced by the fermentation of carbohydrates. Such processes can explain these observations, but more investigation is needed to evaluate whether residual levels of CD can facilitate the anaerobic degradation of chlorinated VOCs.

Solubility enhancement effect of cyclodexin on groundwater pollutants

Cyclodextrin (CD) molecules are polycyclic glucose oligomers that have a hydrophilic exterior and a hydrophobic cavity. This structure provides CD the characteristic of enhancing the solubility of groundwater pollutants. The degree to which CD increases the apparent aqueous solubility of certain chemicals has been defined as the solubility enhancement factor (SEF). In this study, a novel and experimentally simple method has been developed to determine the SEF, which can be mathematically obtained by ratio of apparent and traditional Henry's law constants. The effects of temperature and CD concentration on the SEFs and CD cavity occupation have been investigated. Our results show that SEF values are inversely related to temperature for most examined chemicals, which is consistent with the assertion that the CD-chemical complexes are less stable at higher temperatures. The exception is toluene that shows the least SEF fluctuation within the temperature range studied (5 to 65 °C). This may indicate that the toluene-CD complex is particularly stable. As the definition of SEF predicted, linear relationships were found between the SEFs and CD concentrations for all the subject chemicals. The CD cavity occupation fraction at 5 °C were 3.14, 2.55, 2.04, 1.60, and 1.67 times greater than the values at 65 °C for of trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, bezene, ethylbenze, and o-xylene, respectively. The fraction of CD cavities occupied was found to be inversely related to the CD concentration for all tested chemicals when pollutant mass are held constant. This study provides important information to accurately evaluate the performance of CD when used for aquifer remediation.

Dynamic interactions between cyclodextrin, an organic pollutant, and granular activated carbon in column studies

In this study, the dynamic interactions between cyclodextrin (CD), an organic chemical and granular activated carbon (GAC) were investigated using column studies. Breakthrough curves of a chlorinated solvent, trichloroethylene (TCE) were obtained over a range of concentrations of 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HPCD) (0, 20, and 50 g L(-1)) and flow velocities (1.0, 4.0, and 10.2 mL min(-1)). Important transport parameters (i.e. residence time, dispersion coefficient, retardation factor) were estimated using truncated temporal moment analysis. Our result shows that increasing CD concentration resulted in earlier TCE breakthrough, demonstrated by decreasing residence times which are 306.23, 151.26, and 102.24 pore volumes for 0, 20, and 50 g L(-1) CD respectively. Comparison of the original breakthrough curves (BTCs) under different CD concentrations to the solubility-enhancement-rescaled BTCs showed (1) the presence of CD decreases the relative degree of TCE sorption to GAC and (2) all 3 curves exhibited similar rescaled times at which they reach 50% of the input concentration. The lowest flow rate, (1.0 mL min(-1)), resulted in a more symmetrical BTC, indicating more ideal conditions were achieved under the longer exposure time provided by this flow rate. As the flow rate increases the first appearance of TCE in the eluent occurs relatively earlier and exhibits comparatively greater delay in achieving full breakthrough, suggesting non-equilibrium processes are more significant at higher flow rates.

The pseudophase approach to assessing chemical partitioning in air-water-cyclodextrin systems

Henry's Law constants (HLCs) of several common, subsurface hydrophobic organic pollutants (HOPs) including trichloroethylene (TCE), perchloroethylene (PCE) and benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and o-xylene (BTEX), were measured using a static headspace phase ratio (SHPR) method over a range of temperatures (35, 45, 55, and 65 degrees C) and experimentally and operationally relevant cyclodextrin (CD) concentrations (0, 10, 20, 50, and 100 g L(-1)). In aqueous CD solutions, HLC values decrease according to a power law relationship with increasing CD concentration due to an apparent solubility enhancement caused by HOP partitioning to the hydrophobic cavity of CD molecules. The temperature dependence of air-water partitioning under the influence of CD was well described by the van't Hoff equation for all HOPs tested. A three-phase equilibrium model was used to interpret air-water-CD partitioning data, treating CD as a pseudophase. Our results show that HOP CD-water partition coefficients decrease linearly with increasing temperature. CD-water partition coefficients were generally independent of CD concentration, with a few exceptions. Comparison of our results for hydroxypropyl-beta-CD and TCE to those from another study showed several major discrepancies, which were attributed to differences in the experimental methods employed. Our attempt to correlate CD-water partition coefficients with HOP chemical properties indicates that correlations based on individual chemical descriptors (e.g., aqueous solubility, octanol-water partition coefficient, molecular volume or ET (30) polarity index) will not be sufficient to obtain accurate estimates of HOP CD-water partition coefficients for other compounds with differing chemical structures.

Cyclodextrins: a new efficient absorbent to treat waste gas streams

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the air provoke health and environmental concerns. This paper focuses on the absorption method to treat industrial polluted air loaded with VOCs. The key variable of this treatment being the choice of a suitable liquid absorbent, the aim of this research work is to investigate the effectiveness and the regeneration of a new potential family of absorbent: cyclodextrins (CDs). All CDs derivatives tested are able to decrease the Henry's law constant of toluene: a reduction of volatility up to 95% may be obtained, depending on CD nature and concentration. Moreover, absorption experiments show that beta-CD, which presents the highest absorption ability, is 250 time more efficient than water. The absorption efficiency is not totally correlated with static experiments, suggesting that, in addition to Henry's law constants and inclusion compounds stability, toluene diffusion into such solutions has to be taken into account. It is also to be noted that salt and pH variations seem to have little influence on the absorption capacity of CDs, which may be of great interest for industrial applications. Finally, since production of solid compounds was not observed during these experiments and since temperature decreases the capture ability in a drastic way, regeneration of the washing solution can be achieved by heating the solution in combination with air stripping.

Competitive immobilization of multiple component chlorinated solvents by cyclodextrin derivatives

Immobilization of chlorinated solvents with hydropropyl and methyl cyclodextrins (CDs) was observed by head-space analysis to obtain the stability constants in single and multiple component systems. In each single component system, the highest stability constant was 0.299 mM(-1) for perchloroethylene (PCE) by methyl-beta-cyclodextrin (M-beta-CD), 0.136 mM(-1) for trichloroethylene (TCE) by M-beta-CD, 0.106 mM(-1) for cis-dichloroethylene (cis-DCE) by hydropropyl-alpha-cyclodextrin, and 0.090 mM(-1) for trans-dichloroethylene (trans-DCE) by M-beta-CD. When HP-beta-CD and M-beta-CD were used, the stability constants of PCE and TCE increased and those of DCEs decreased in a multiple component system. Differences in stability constants of single and multiple component systems thus should be important parameters when cyclodextrins are applied to solubilization of multiple chlorinated solvents.

Use of the three-phase model and headspace analysis for the facile determination of all partition/association constants for highly volatile solute–cyclodextrin–water systems

A versatile method for measuring the partition coefficients of volatile analytes with an aqueous pseudophase using headspace gas chromatography is reported. A "three-phase" model accounts for all equilibria present in the system, including the partitioning of the analyte in the gas and aqueous phases to the pseudophase. This method is applicable to a wide variety of volatile analytes and aqueous pseudophases, providing that sufficient pseudophase may be used to reduce the analyte partial pressure. Generally, the method offers good reproducibility and high sensitivity. The associations of five volatile analytes (hydrogen sulfide, methanethiol, dimethyl sulfide, dichloromethane, and ethyl ether) with various cyclodextrins were examined. All analytes were found to partition preferentially to the cyclodextrin pseudophase compared to the aqueous phase. In addition, several analyte-cyclodextrin combinations formed insoluble complexes in solution that enhanced the extraction of the analyte from the gas and aqueous phases. Derivatization of the cyclodextrins generally decreased the extent of analyte-cyclodextrin interaction.