Stability of Brestan in Tropical Waters
- 1 April 1982
- journal article
- Published by IWA Publishing in Water Science & Technology
- Vol. 14 (4-5) , 133-142
- https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.1982.0093
Abstract
Brestan (triphenyltin acetate) which is used for controlling fungal pathogens of economic crops in many tropical countries was investigated to assess its persistence in aquatic ecosystems. Sterile and nonsterile samples of freshwater, sewage, sea water, and soil were amended with 50 µg/ml or g brestan and incubated under greenhouse conditions. At selected periods of time, the residual brestan in each sample was extracted and assayed colorimetrica11y. After 28 weeks of incubation 76%, 75%, and 78% of the fungicide were still recoverable from freshwater, sewage, and sea water, respectively, while only 30% of the chemical remained in soil. Disappearance or metabolism of the pesticide was due less to biotic than to physico-chemical factors. TLC analysis showed brestan to be converted to the very stable triphenyltin hydroxide in both freshwater and sea water while the pesticide was probably metabolised to inorganic tin, monophenyltin, triphenyltin hydroxide and tetraphenyltin compound in both sewage and soil. Hence the fairly recalcitrant brestan has a relatively high pollution potential in streams and soil adjoining treated plots.Keywords
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