Integrated Evaluation Concept to Assess the Efficacy of Advanced Wastewater Treatment Processes for the Elimination of Micropollutants and Pathogens

Abstract

A multidisciplinary concept has been developed to compare advanced wastewater treatment processes for their efficacy of eliminating micropollutants and pathogens. The concept is based on (i) the removal/formation of selected indicator substances and their transformation products (TPs), (ii) the assessment of ecotoxicity via in vitro tests, and (iii) the removal of pathogens and antibiotic resistant bacteria. It includes substances passing biological wastewater treatment plants regulated or proposed to be regulated in the European Water Framework Directive, TPs formed in biological processes or during ozonation, agonistic/antagonistic endocrine activities, mutagenic/genotoxic activities, cytotoxic activities, further activities like neurotoxicity as well as antibiotics resistance genes, and taxonomic gene markers for pathogens. At a pilot plant, ozonation of conventionally treated wastewater resulted in the removal of micropollutants and pathogens and the reduction of estrogenic effects, whereas the in vitro mutagenicity increased. Subsequent post-treatment of the ozonated water by granular activated carbon (GAC) significantly reduced the mutagenic effects as well as the concentrations of remaining micropollutants, whereas this was not the case for biofiltration. The results demonstrate the suitability of the evaluation concept to assess processes of advanced wastewater treatment including ozonation and GAC by considering chemical, ecotoxicological, and microbiological parameters.

Occurrence of the mcr-1 Colistin Resistance Gene and other Clinically Relevant Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Microbial Populations at Different Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants in Germany

“…In fact, no national or international regulations or threshold values are available that mention the dissemination of clinically relevant microbes including antibiotic resistances via WWTPs to the aquatic environments. In fact, integrated evaluation concepts to assess the efficiency of advanced wastewater treatment processes for the elimination of antibiotic resistant bacteria and micro-pollutants are already published (Ternes et al, 2017) and are supposed to be a useful tool to initialize regulation processes.…”

The impact of the anti-diabetic drug metformin on the intestinal microbiome of larval brown trout (Salmo trutta f. fario)

“…For this reason, calibration curves derived from the mentioned reference bacteria were used for quantification of so-called cell equivalents in mixed populations (Additional file 1: Figures S1, S2). The numbers of targets in each sample were derived using the corresponding calibration curve and normalised to 16S rDNA (cell equivalents per 16S rDNA copy number) [43]. Reactions were run in volumes of 20 μL, containing 10 μL of Maxima SYBR Green Master Mix (2×) (Thermo Scientific) and 8.2 μL of nuclease-free water (Ambion, Life Technologies, Karlsbad, Germany) of the respective primers (final concentration of 0.25 μm, Additional file 1: Table S3), and 1 μL template DNA (30 ng DNA per sample).…”

“…The amplification curve and melting point calculation of the amplicons are presented in Additional file 1. In this study, relative quantification based on 16S rDNA copy numbers was used [43]. Both, enterococci and aeromonads were detected in the microbiome of all 90 DNA extract samples including nine environmental microbiome fish samples (river), and microbiome samples from the fish farm (n = 3).…”

Distribution of Anticancer Drugs in River Waters and Sediments of the Yodo River Basin, Japan

“…However, its insufficient ability to eliminate anticancer drugs at STPs, as described above, necessitates the introduction of additional post-treatment technologies. Importance of such an advanced water treatment systems at STPs is becoming widely recognized [78][79][80], because of high power for removing not only PPCPs but also other chemicals such as EDCs [81], persistent organic pollutants (POPs) [82], bacterial pathogens, and viruses [83].…”