Occurrence, behavior and removal of typical substituted and parent polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in a biological wastewater treatment plant

Formation of oxygenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons during aerobic activated sludge treatment and their removal process

“…However, there has been few study focused on the performance of activated sludge in transforming PAHs to OPAHs. The formation of OPAHs in the wastewater treatment process has never been reported before, except a speculative conclusion in our previous study [7]. Meanwhile, whether the white rot fungi exist in WWTPs is also unknown.…”

“…The removal efficiencies of the added targets in the total phase decreased with increasing molecular weight, with a corresponding factor of 0.76 for PAHs and 0.88 for OPAHs. Similarly, in a real WWTP, the reduction of LMW PAHs and OPAHs in the total phase was higher than the reduction of HMW PAHs and OPAHs [7]. In the aqueous phase, the situation was different.…”

“…We proposed in the previous study that in a real biological WWTP, some PAHs could transform to OPAHs [7,8]. In this section, one of the intermediate products of d-Ant, d-AQ, was investigated to confirm the biotransformation from PAHs to OPAHs during biological wastewater treatment process.…”

“…Some of the derivatives are as toxic as or more toxic than their corresponding parent compounds [5,6]. Previous studies reported the existence of MPAHs and OPAHs in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as well as in rivers [7,8]. Although these compounds can be partially removed in biological WWTPs, the effluent from the corresponding WWTPs is a major source for PAHs and their derivatives in the receiving river systems, especially in Beijing, China [8,9].…”

“…The concentrations of the individual naphthalene derivatives were 21-130 ng/L in the influent and 1-27 ng/L in the effluent. For other PAH derivatives, to the best of our knowledge, only one study from our group reported the removal of OPAHs in a biological WWTP [7]. Thus, there is a lack of study focused on the removal process and influencing factors of SPAHs.…”