Assessment of bisphenol-A in the urban water cycle

Abstract

The plasticizer bisphenol-A (BPA) is common to municipal wastewaters and can exert toxicity to exposed organisms in the environment. Here BPA concentration at 5 sewage treatment works (STW) and distribution throughout a river catchment in South West UK were investigated. Sampling sites included influent and effluent wastewater (n=5), river water (n=7) and digested sludge (n=2) which were monitored for 7 consecutive days. Findings revealed average BPA loads in influent wastewater at two STWs were 10-37 times greater than the other wastewaters monitored. Concentrations up to ~100 µg L-1 were measured considerably higher than previously reported for municipal wastewaters. Temporal variability throughout the week (i.e., highest concentrations during weekdays) suggests these high concentration are linked with industrial activity. Despite ≥90 % removal during wastewater treatment, notable concentrations remained in tested effluent (62-892 ng L-1). However, minimal impact on BPA concentrations in river water was observed for any of the effluents. The maximum BPA concentration found in river water was 117 ng L-1 which is considerably lower than the current predicted no effect concentration of 1.6 µg L-1. Nevertheless, analysis of digested sludge from sites which received these elevated BPA levels revealed average concentrations of 4.6±0.3 and 38.7±5.4 µg g-1. These sludge BPA concentrations are considerably greater than previously reported

Levels of NP and BPA in the Pearl River Estuary, China: Fluctuations with Country Policy Changes over the Past 40 Years

“…These restrictions specified that NP and NPEOs can never be imported or exported, restricted BPA in baby bottles in 2006, charged for plastic bags in 2008, and limited BPA in food packages in 2011. In addition, the BPA in discarded plastic and resin material might leach into the environment [76]. The present results showed more complicated trends for BPA, which indicated that the unstable disposal of plastic and resin material may result in the fluctuation of BPA levels.…”

Integrated Au/TiO2 Nanostructured Photoanodes for Photoelectrochemical Organics Degradation

“…In Figure 3, the trend of OCP measured in supporting electrolyte is compared to that in two different concentrations of BPA: for all the samples, it is a matter of oxidative OCP, whose absolute values are reported. If the effect of the M is concerned, samples Au/TiO 2 /Au and TiO 2 /Au show a slight increase in OCP in KNO 3 , if compared with that measured at TiO 2 sample, which could be in apparent contrast with the relevant values of the OCV. To note, as a consequence of the more positive OCV values measured for the Au/TiO 2 /Au and TiO 2 /Au samples, a lower efficiency could be expected in terms of OCP, as it is generally obtained in single-crystal systems.…”

Enantiospecific behaviour of chiral drugs in soil

“…Care is needed if the analysis of biosolids or irrigation water is used to estimate soil enantiomer concentrations for risk assessment purposes (an approach taken for other trace pollutants (Stasinakis et al, 2008;Petrie et al, 2019). The inversion of pharmacologically less active enantiomers to more active enantiomers in soil or vice versa (e.g., naproxen and ibuprofen -Figure 3, Figure S14) could result in the underestimation or overestimation of risk, respectively (assuming pharmacological activity in humans is reflected in environmental toxicity studies).…”