Photolytic fate and genotoxicity of benzophenone-derived compounds and their photodegradation mixtures in the aqueous environment

• Evaluation of benzophenones photostability under the influence of artificial UV light and sunlight.
• Benzophenones are not genotoxic at environmentaly relevant concentrations.
• The first evaluation of genotoxicity of 3-ethylbenzophenone and 3-acetylbenzophenone.
• Assessment of genotoxicity of photodegradation mixtures of benzophenones.

This study investigates the environmental fate of eight benzophenone derivatives (the pharmaceutical ketoprofen, its phototransformation products 3-ethylbenzophenone and 3-acetylbenzophenone, and five benzophenone-type UV filters) by evaluating their photolytic behaviour. In addition, the genotoxicity of these compounds and the produced photodegradation mixtures was studied. Laboratory-scale irradiation experiments using a medium pressure UV lamp revealed that photodegradation of benzophenones follows pseudo-first-order kinetics. Ketoprofen was the most photolabile (t1/2 = 0.8 min), while UV filters were more resistant to UV light with t1/2 between 17 and 99 h. The compounds were also exposed to irradiation by natural sunlight and showed similar photostability as predicted under laboratory conditions. Solar photodegradation experiments were performed in distilled water, lake and seawater, and revealed that photosensitizers present in natural waters significantly affect the photolytic behaviour of the investigated compounds. In this case, the presence of lake water resulted in accelerated photodecomposition, while seawater showed different effects on photodegradation, depending on a compound. Further, it was shown that the transformation products of ketoprofen 3-ethylbenzophenone and 3-acetylbenzophenone were formed under environmental conditions when ketoprofen was exposed to natural sunlight. Genotoxicity testing of parent benzophenone compounds using the SOS/umuC assay revealed that UV filters exhibited weak genotoxic activity in the presence of a metabolic activation system, however the concentrations tested were much higher than found in the environment (≥125 μg mL−1). After irradiation of benzophenones, the produced photodegradation mixtures showed that, with the exception of benzophenone that exhibited weak genotoxic activity, all the other compounds tested did not elicit any activity when exposed to UV light.