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In this work, an evaluation of the occurrence of fifteen phthalates, four metabolites and one adipate in different groundwater, seawater and wastewater samples has been carried out due to their relevance on human health as they act as endocrine disruptors. For this purpose, a sustainable, fast and easy-handling vortex-assisted liquid-liquid microextraction method using a natural hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent based on menthol and carvacrol as extraction agent, combined with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry technique, has been developed and applied for the first time. An optimization was performed to evaluate four important factors affecting the extraction performance, and an analytical validation was carried out in terms of matrix effect, linearity, extraction efficiency, and sensitivity. Recovery values were obtained in the range 72-119% for all analytes (except for monoethyl phthalate: 61.1-72.3%) with relative standard deviation values lower than 17%. Limits of quantification were found between 0.91 and 8.09 μg L -1 . As a result of the assessment of 31 different environmental water samples, monoethyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, dibutyl phthalate and bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate were detected and quantified at different concentrations in the range 2.59-21.17 μg L -1 in 6 samples, and diallyl phthalate, butyl benzyl phthalate, dipentyl phthalate, dicyclohexyl phthalate, dihexyl phthalate and bis (2-ethylhexyl) adipate were detected in 20 more, showing the exposition of the population to these hazardous substances., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Continuous venovenous hemofiltration (CVVH) is widely used in intensive care units to treat patients with acute kidney injury requiring renal replacement therapy. The medical devices (MD) used for CVVH include a hemofilter and tubings made of plasticized PVC. Due to its known reprotoxicity, diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) has been replaced by alternatives such as diethylhexyladipate (DEHA) in some of these tubings. The migration of DEHA from hemofiltration systems has not been assessed and thus the level of patient exposure to this DEHP-alternative remains unknown. In this study, 2 CVVH models were used to evaluate the potential migration of DEHA from PVC tubings, allowing the determination of (Rachoin and Weisberg, 2019) the highest rates of DEHA able to migrate into a simulant flowing in a marketed adult CVVH circuit by disregarding any metabolisation and (Krieter et al., 2013) the clinical-reflecting exposure of patients to this plasticizer and its metabolites by assessing their migration into blood. In the first model, we showed that patients undergoing a CVVH procedure may be exposed to high rates of DEHA. Moreover, DEHA is continuously hydrolyzed into its primary metabolite MEHA (monoethylhexyladipate), which may reach cytotoxic level in the patients' blood. When looking from a « safer » MD perspective, DEHA might not be the best alternative plasticizer for CVVH tubings. However, to reflect clinical conditions, this study should be completed by an in-vivo evaluation (biomonitoring) of the oxidized metabolites of DEHA in urines of inpatients undergoing CVVH., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this work, PM(10) samples were collected in a winter and a summer in Christchurch, a New Zealand city having intensive wood and coal burning and a serious air pollution problem in winter. Oxalic, malonic, succinic, maleic, glutaric and adipic acids in the samples were analysed using ion chromatography. It was suggested that solid fuel burning had large influence on the occurrence of these low molecular weight dicarboxylic acids resulting in significantly higher wintertime concentrations of maleic acid, oxalic acid and glutaric or adipic acid. The most pronounced feature observed was that maleic acid was the second most abundant species of the detected DCAs in the winter (with a mean of 74 ngm(-3) and the highest concentration ever reported of 231 ngm(-3)). In contrast, malonic acid experienced a low abundance in both seasons. The observed seasonal patterns and molecular distribution were inconsistent with those in most other urban areas. On an average, the total detected dicarboxylic acids accounted for about 0.5% of PM(10) mass with a maximum of 1.4% in the winter. The relative importance of different sources to individual dicarboxylic acids varied with seasons and is discussed in detail.