Applicability of Fluorescence and Absorbance Spectroscopy to Estimate Organic Pollution in Rivers

Abstract

This article explores the applicability of fluorescence and absorbance spectroscopy for estimating organic pollution in polluted rivers. The relationship between absorbance, fluorescence intensity, dissolved organic carbon, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and other water quality parameters were used to characterize and identify the origin and the spatial variability of the organic pollution in a highly polluted watershed. Analyses were performed for the Iguassu River, located in southern Brazil, with area about 2,700 km 2 and *3 million inhabitants. Samples were collect at six monitoring sites covering 107 km of the main river. BOD, COD, nitrogen, and phosphorus concentration indicates a high input of sewage to the river. Specific absorbance at 254 and 285 nm (SUVA 254 and A 285 /COD) did not show significant variation between sites monitored, indicating the presence of both dissolved compounds found in domestic effluents and humic and fulvic compounds derived from allochthonous organic matter. Correlations between BOD and tryptophan-like fluorescence peak (peak T 2 , r = 0.7560, and peak T 1 , r = 0.6949) and tyrosine-like fluorescence peak (peak B, r = 0.7321) indicated the presence of labile organic matter and thus confirmed the presence of sewage in the river. Results showed that fluorescence and absorbance spectroscopy provide useful information on pollution in rivers from critical watersheds and together are a robust method that is simpler and more rapid than traditional methods employed by regulatory agencies.

Morphological Grayscale Reconstruction and ATLD for Recognition of Organic Pollutants in Drinking Water Based on Fluorescence Spectroscopy

“…Spectral analysis-as a new detection method without sample extraction, enrichment, other pretreatments, and chemical reagent addition-is gaining increased attention in the field of water-quality detection [10]. Common spectral analysis methods include UV-Vis and fluorescence spectroscopy [11][12][13][14][15]. UV-Vis detection has a certain boundedness in terms of sensitivity and detection limit.…”

Evaluation of Dissolved Organic Carbon Using Synchronized Fluorescence Emission Spectra and Unsupervised Method of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA)

“…Autochthonous originates, for example, from the activity of phytoplankton or aquatic weeds. The allochthonous DOM can be from pedogenic sources (humic substances-HSs) or anthropogenic sources, such as industrial or domestic wastewater [2] [3] [5] [7].…”

To what extent can portable fluorescence spectroscopy be used in the real-time assessment of microbial water quality?

“…At this wavelength, the intensity of fluorescence emitted at~350 nm (often referred to as peak T or peak T2) has been shown to relate to the water quality in sewage-impacted rivers (Baker, 2001). Peak T has been found to correlate with Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) in rivers (Baker and Inverarity, 2004;Hudson et al, 2008;Hur et al, 2008;Hur and Cho, 2012;Knapik et al, 2014) and sewer systems (Hur et al, 2010). Peak T also correlates with BOD and chemical oxygen demand within the sewerage treatment process (Bridgeman et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2014); and with total bacteria using flow cytometry (Bridgeman et al, 2015).…”