Polar Pollutants Entry into the Water Cycle by Municipal Wastewater:  A European Perspective

Abstract

The effluents of eight municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) in Western Europe were analyzed by liquid-chromatography-mass spectrometry for the occurrence of 36 polar pollutants, comprising household and industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products. In a long-term study of the effluents of three WWTP over 10 months, sulfophenyl carboxylates and ethylene diamino tetraacetate (EDTA) were detected above 10 microg/L on average, while benzotriazoles, benzothiazole-2-sulfonate, diclofenac, and carbamazepine showed mean concentrations of 1-10 microg/L, followed by some flame retardants, naphthalene disulfonates, and personal care products in the range of 0.1-1 microg/L. Half of the determined compounds were not significantly removed in tertiary wastewater treatment. By dividing the effluent concentration of a compound by its relative removal in WWTP a water cycle spreading index (WCSI) was calculated for each compound. We propose that this index provides a measure for the potential of a polar compound to spread along a partially closed water cycle after discharge with municipal wastewater and to occur in raw waters used for drinking water production. Polar pollutants in surface water samples of different catchments showed increasing concentration for compounds with increasing WCSI.

Removal of organophosphate esters from municipal secondary effluent by ozone and UV/H2O2 treatments

“…OPEs cannot be efficiently removed by conventional biological treatment processes in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), resulting in their widespread presence in secondary effluents and surface waters at concentrations ranging from ng L À1 to a few hundred lg L À1 [4][5][6]. Marklund et al [7] identified tris (2-butoxyethyl) phosphate (TBEP), tris(chloropropyl) phosphate (TCPP) and tri-n-butyl phosphate (TnBP) as the most abundant OPEs at concentrations ranging from 0.36 to 30 lg L À1 in the effluents of seven Swedish WWTPs.…”

Biodegradation of three selected benzotriazoles under aerobic and anaerobic conditions

“…Removal efficiencies in conventional WWTPs have been reported to be in the ranges of 13e62% for BT and 11e74% for 5-TTri (Hollingsworth et al, 2005;Giger et al, 2006;Voutsa et al, 2006;Weiss et al, 2006), with no published data available for CBT. Benzotriazole has been detected in surface water at concentrations up to 3.4 mg/L (Breedveld et al, 2003;Weiss and Reemtsma, 2005;Giger et al, 2006;Reemtsma et al, 2006;Voutsa et al, 2006;Weiss et al, 2006;Kiss and Fries, 2009), in sediment and sludge at concentrations up to 198 ng/g (Zhang et al, 2011). Much higher concentrations of up to 126 mg/L for BT and 17 mg/L for 5-TTri have been found in groundwater from airport locations due to its heavy use as an antifogging agent (Cancilla et al, 1998(Cancilla et al, , 2003.…”

Protecting aquatic organisms from chemicals: the harsh realities

“…So, what do we know about what chemicals are present in this effluent, and at what concentrations? The answer appears to be 'very little' (Reemstsma et al 2006). We know quite a lot about some chemicals, or groups of chemicals (e.g.…”