Soil property controls on plasticiser, antioxidant and UV absorber additive degradation across a global soil gradient

TL;DR

This study examines how soil properties affect the breakdown of plastic additives in agricultural soils from around the world.

Contribution

The study identifies soil microbial biomass and nitrate as key factors influencing the degradation of specific plastic additives.

Findings

DEHP degraded via β-oxidation and ester hydrolysis, with negligible breakdown in low microbial biomass soils.

BP12 degraded fastest through first-order kinetics and produced benzophenone and benzoic acid as byproducts.

AO168 degraded abiotically and was not strongly correlated with any soil variable.

Abstract

Additives in agricultural plastics can leach into the surrounding soil during use or improper disposal. Their subsequent degradation rates directly regulate whether they persist and accumulate to levels with ecotoxicological effects or are rendered benign. However, which soil properties primarily regulate the degradation of additives remains unclear (e.g. soil carbon, pH, available nutrients, microbial biomass and community structure). We assessed the degradation of the common plastic additives with different functionalities (DEHP (di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate; plasticiser), 2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone (benzophenone-12; BP12; UV stabiliser) and AO168 (tris(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl) phosphite; antioxidant)) in soils under controlled moisture and temperature conditions over 21 days across contrasting agricultural soils from six countries across a global transect (Australia, Brazil, Egypt, India, Vietnam and the UK). DEHP followed zero-order degradation kinetics, with negligible degradation in soils with low microbial biomass. BP12 degraded fastest via first-order degradation kinetics via ether cleavage and hydroxyl loss. The degradation of DEHP and BP12 was correlated with soil microbial biomass and nitrate concentration. BP12 degradation products detected included benzophenone and benzoic acid. DEHP is degraded via β-oxidation of alkyl groups to dibutyl phthalate and diethyl phthalate and through ester hydrolysis to phthalic acid. AO168 degraded via abiotic oxidation and phosphate ester hydrolysis to 2,4-di-tert-butyl-phenol, and degradation was not well correlated with any measured soil variable. Overall, these results show that the components of additive mixtures leached into soils will degrade at different rates due to varying mechanisms and controls exerted by the soil microbial biomass. Plastic additives have differing potentials to persist in agricultural soils globally, with some likely to accumulate to levels that may impact soil function and pose an ecotoxicological threat to soil biota.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-025-37152-2.

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