Endocrine disruptors chemicals (EDCs) pose significant health risks, including cancer, behavioral disorders, and infertility. In this study, we employed the photoelectrocatalysis (PEC) technique with optimized tungsten oxide (WO) nanostructures as a photoanode to degrade three diverse EDCs: methiocarb, dimethyl phthalate, and 4-tert-butylphenol. PEC degradation tests were carried out for individual contaminants and a mixture of them, assessing efficiency across different EDC families. Ultra High-Performance Liquid Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry was used to control the course of the experiments. For individual solutions, 4-tert-butylphenol and methiocarb were 100% degraded at 1 hour of PEC degradation. Among the tested EDCs, dimethyl phthalate showed the highest resistance to degradation when treated individually. However, when assessed in a mixture with the other EDCs, the degradation efficiency of dimethyl phthalate increased compared to its individual treatment. Furthermore, four degradation intermediates were identified for each contaminant. Finally, toxicity tests revealed that the initial solution was more toxic than the samples treated for all the contaminants tested, except for the phthalate.

中文翻译：

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光电催化是降解内分泌干扰物化学物质的有效过程吗？

内分泌干​​扰物化学物质 (EDC) 会带来重大健康风险，包括癌症、行为障碍和不孕不育。在这项研究中，我们采用光电催化（PEC）技术和优化的氧化钨（WO）纳米结构作为光电阳极来降解三种不同的EDC：甲硫威、邻苯二甲酸二甲酯和4-叔丁基苯酚。对单个污染物及其混合物进行了 PEC 降解测试，评估了不同 EDC 系列的效率。超高效液相色谱和质谱用于控制实验过程。对于各个溶液，4-叔丁基苯酚和灭虫威在 PEC 降解 1 小时后 100% 降解。在测试的 EDC 中，邻苯二甲酸二甲酯在单独处理时表现出最高的耐降解性。然而，当与其他 EDC 混合进行评估时，邻苯二甲酸二甲酯的降解效率与其单独处理相比有所提高。此外，还确定了每种污染物的四种降解中间体。最后，毒性测试表明，对于所有测试污染物（邻苯二甲酸盐除外），初始溶液比处理过的样品毒性更大。