Simple Measurement of 4,4’-bis(2-sulfostyryl)-biphenyl in River Water by Fluorescence Analysis and Its Application as an Indicator of Domestic Wastewater Contamination

Abstract

A characteristic peak of fluorescent whitening agents (FWAs) was detected by fluorescence excitation spectrum (FES) measurement of river water samples. The main causative chemical was 4,4'-bis(2-sulfostyryl)-biphenyl (DSBP), which is commonly added to household detergents in Japan. As the fluorescence of DSBP overlaps with that of fulvic-like organic matter in the spectral fluorescent signatures, DSBP concentration was determined by the newly proposed calculation method, which uses fluorescence intensity at three excitation wavelengths of 320, 345 and 360 nm at emission wavelength of 430 nm for baseline correction. The concentration of DSBP calculated using this method showed strong correlation (correlation coefficient: r = 0.992) with that obtained by high-performance liquid chromatography analysis. The concentrations of DSBP detected in river water samples were 0.28 to 1.84 μg l −1 , with high concentrations observed at the stations with relatively high flow rates of upstream sources of treated domestic wastewater and untreated gray water (domestic wastewater excluding flush toilet wastewater).It was proved that the concentration of DSBP in river water is useful for giving rough estimation of the magnitude of domestic wastewater contamination in river water.

Estimation of Biological Oxygen Demand and Chemical Oxygen Demand for Combined Sewer Systems Using Synchronous Fluorescence Spectra

“…This is because whitening agents are widely used as detergent additives, and fluorescence regions of humic acid and whitening agents overlap each other. In addition, the observable level of the peak is unusual even considering river samples rich in humic acids [ 9 , 17 , 19 ]. It is reported that high fluorescence intensity near the HLF region is observed from tissue mill effluent samples, which contain abundant whitening agents [ 20 ].…”

Characterization of Nanming River (southwestern China) sewerage-impacted pollution using an excitation-emission matrix and PARAFAC

“…3e) were in agreement with the reported studies of a UK river (344 ± 5.8/433 ± 2.9 nm) in which there was water input from a tissue mill, where components of FWAs were used during the pulp processes (Baker 2002b), and of Japanese rivers (335-350/427-450 nm) where untreated sewerage effluents are directly discharged into the rivers (Mostofa et al 2005a). The use of household detergents has been largely examined using a chromatographic technique in Swiss rivers and lakes (Kramer et al 1996;Poiger et al 1996Poiger et al , 1999) and Japanese rivers and coastal waters (Takada et al 1992;Hayashi et al 2002;Managaki and Takada 2005;Hayakawa et al 2007;Takahashi and Kawamura 2007). Therefore, household detergents or components of FWAs might be important sources of fluorescent organic matter in aquatic environments.…”

A novel approach combining self-organizing map and parallel factor analysis for monitoring water quality of watersheds under non-point source pollution

“…Protein-like substances are also found in freshwaters affected by wastewater and in productive oceanic environments 10 30 33 . Moreover, Henderson, et al 34 reported that additional peaks in protein-like region might originate from optical brightening agents used in paper brightening and household detergents which could be found in sewage-polluted waters 35 .…”