Occurrence of endocrine-disrupting compounds in reclaimed water from Tianjin, China

Abstract

Continuous disposal of endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) into the environment can lead to serious human health problems and can affect plants and aquatic organisms. The determination of EDCs in water has become an increasingly important activity due to our increased knowledge about their toxicities, even at low concentration. The EDCs in water samples from the reclaimed water plant of Tianjin, northern China, were identified by gas chromatography (GC)-mass spectrometry (MS). Important and contrasting EDCs including estrone (E1), 17beta-estradiol (E2), 17alpha-ethynylestradiol (EE2), 4-tert-octylphenol (OP), 4-nonylphenol (NP), bisphenol A (BPA), di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP), diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP), and di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) were selected as the target compounds. Concentrations of steroid hormones, alkylphenolic compounds and phthalates ranged from below the limit of detection (LOD) to 8.1 ng L(-1), from <LOD to 14.2 ng L(-1), and from 1.00 microg L(-1) to 23.8 microg L(-1), respectively. The average removal efficiencies for target EDCs varied from 30% to 82%. These results indicate that environmental endocrine disrupting compounds are not completely removed during reclaimed water treatment and may be carried over into the general aquatic environment.

An alternative method for the determination of estrogens in surface water and wastewater treatment plant effluent using pre-column trimethylsilyl derivatization and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

“…In river water sample, concentration of E1, E2 and EE2 were changed from nd to 74 ng/l in United Kingdom (Fawell et al 2001), Italy (Baronti et al 2000) and China (Chen et al 2007). In effluent of WWTPs, common detected value were nd to 82, nd to 64, nd to 42 and 0.4 to 39.1 ng/lfor E1, E2, EE2 and E3 in Netherlands (Vethaak et al 2005), Italy (Baronti et al 2000), U.K. (Desbrow et al 1998;Johnson and Sumpter 2001), Germany and Canada (Ternes et al 1999), Sweden (Larsson et al 1999), Japan (Nakada et al 2007) and China (Wang et al 2005;Chen et al 2007;Sun et al 2008). Our results in this study were within the range of previous report.…”

Analysis of estrogens in environmental waters using polymer monolith in-polyether ether ketone tube solid-phase microextraction combined with high-performance liquid chromatography

“…Several pretreatment methods, such as liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) [17,33], solid-phase extraction (SPE) [3][4][5][6][7][8][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] and stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) [10][11][12], have been widely applied to the extraction of EDCs from environmental waters. However, the LLE method demands complex extraction and cleanup procedures, as well as large volumes of sample and organic extractant.…”

Phenol removal efficiencies of sewage treatment processes and ecological risks associated with phenols in effluents

“…Effluent discharges from these sources may therefore contain a large number of phenols that ultimately form an important component of STP influents. Results from a number of different researchers have indicated that phenols are ubiquitous pollutants in STPs [2][3][4][5][6]. Owing to their adverse effects on human health and their toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation in animals and plants [7], the occurrence of phenols in STPs has become an issue of international concern.…”