Degradats

Degradats is a term used in chemistry, pharmacology, and environmental science to refer to substances formed when a parent compound undergoes degradation. In English, the more common term is degradates or degradation products. Degradats can include fragments of the original molecule and new compounds produced by transformation reactions.

Degradation can occur through several mechanisms, including chemical processes such as hydrolysis, oxidation, and photolysis, as well as biological processes known as biodegradation. Conditions such as pH, temperature, light exposure, and the presence of microbes influence which degradats are formed and how quickly degradation proceeds. Some degradats retain partial or full activity of the parent substance, while others are less active or more toxic.

The study of degradats is important for several reasons. In pharmaceuticals, identifying and characterizing degradats helps assess drug stability, shelf life, and safety, and regulatory guidelines often require testing under stress conditions to reveal potential degradats. In environmental science, degradats of pesticides or industrial chemicals affect environmental fate, persistence, mobility, and ecological risk, and may differ markedly from the parent compound in behavior and toxicity.

Detection and analysis typically rely on analytical methods such as liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) or gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), sometimes after forced degradation experiments to generate potential degradats. The term degradats thus encompasses a broad range of transformed substances arising from the breakdown of larger molecules under varying conditions.