Changes in estrogenicity and micropollutant concentrations across unit processes in a biological wastewater treatment system

Abstract

The behavior of 10 micropollutants, i.e. four estrogens (estrone, 17β-estradiol, estriol, 17α-ethynylestradiol), carbamazepine (CBZ), sulfamethoxazole (SMX), triclosan, oxybenzone, 4-nonylphenol, and bisphenol A, was investigated in a typical domestic wastewater treatment plant. LC-MS and yeast estrogen screen bioassay were used to study the changes in micropollutants and estrogenicity across unit processes in the treatment system. Primary treatment via sedimentation showed that only 4-nonylphenol was removed, but led to no significant change in estrogenicity. Secondary treatment by the biological nitrification-dentrification process showed complete removal of oxybenzone and partial removal of the estrogens, which led to a decrease in estrogenic activity from 80 to 48 ng/L as estradiol equivalent (EEq). Ultraviolet treatment completely degraded the estrogens and triclosan, but failed to lower the concentrations of bisphenol A, SMX, and CBZ; a decrease in estrogenic activity from 48 to 5 ng/L EEq across the unit, a value that was only slightly larger than the observed EEq of 1 ng/L for the deionized control. Similarly, the anaerobic digestion of sludge completely degraded estrogens, oxybenzone, and SMX, but had no impact on bisphenol A, triclosan, and CBZ. The study emphasises the need to complement chemical analyses with estrogenic bioassays to evaluate the efficacy of waste water treatment plants.

Analytical methodologies for the determination of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in sewage sludge: A critical review

“…Oasis MAX (Mixed-Mode Anion-eXchange) has been also used in other cases [62,64]. However, the reverse phase sorbent patented in Oasis HLB (Hydrophilic-Lipophilic Balanced) has been the preferred option over the last six years [13,24,29,30,32,39,40,42,[48][49][50]56,59,64,74,75,77,80,81]. It is a universal polymer reversed-phase sorbent that was developed for the extraction of a wide range of acidic, basic and neutral compounds from various matrices.…”

Towards Sustainable Environmental Quality: Priority Research Questions for the Australasian Region of Oceania

“…Although tremendous progress has been achieved in adapting and validating in vitro tools to environmental monitoring and risk assessment (e.g., in Australasia, Coleman et al 2008;Mispagel et al 2009;Chinathamby et al 2013;Bain et al 2014;Escher et al 2014;Leusch et al 2014;Scott et al 2014;Roberts et al 2015;Boehler et al 2017;Neale, Achard et al 2017;Neale, Altenburger et al 2017;Chen et al 2018;Leusch et al 2018), some fundamental questions still need to be systematically addressed before these techniques can become reliable predictors of whole animal level effects: 1) Refine quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation (QI-VIVE): Although there is a clear correlation between in vitro response and in vivo effects for some endpoints such as acute toxicity (Kaiser 1998;Tanneberger et al 2013;Natsch et al 2018) and receptor-mediated endocrine effects (Sonneveld et al 2006(Sonneveld et al , 2011Henneberg et al 2014), toxicokinetic factors (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) still pose a difficult challenge for QIVIVE (Blaauboer 2015;Meek and Lipscomb 2015), although groundbreaking studies suggest that this may soon be within reach (Rotroff et al 2010;Wetmore 2015). 2) Fully map relevant AOPs: There is still much work to be done to map key events (KEs) to connect the dots between the molecular or cellular initiating event and the ultimate apical consequence to produce comprehensive AOPs, for both humans and ecosystems ).…”

Hormônios estrogênicos em matrizes aquáticas: revisão sistemática de literatura

“…Ainda, tais técnicas cromatográficas não levam em consideração os efeitos sinergéticos dos contaminantes nos ecossistemas e na saúde humana. As análises químicas podem ser complementadas com bioensaios estrogênicosque têm como alvo parâmetros biológicos relevantes para a saúdepara verificar os efeitos sobre o sistema endócrino, tendo em vista que em um cenário ambiental real, ocorrem inúmeras interações entre diferentes compostospara os quais as investigações químicas são incapazes de explicar -, garantindo assim, uma avaliação mais extensiva da qualidade da água (CHEN et al, 2018;VALBONESI et al, 2021).…”