TITLE:
Determination of the Occurrence and Elimination of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs) in Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTP)
AUTHORS:
Claudia Lange, Bertram Kuch, Joerg W. Metzger
KEYWORDS:
17β-Estradiol; E-Screen Assay; Estrogens; Micropollutants; Water Quality
JOURNAL NAME:
Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering,
Vol.3 No.1,
December
11,
2013
ABSTRACT: In recent years, many research and development activities have focussed on endocrine
disrupting compounds (EDCs) in rivers, lakes and surface waters as the
potential cause of reproductive disturbances in different aquatic organisms e.g.
fish and mollusk. The effluent of wastewater treatment plants was identified as
main source for EDCs entering the aquatic environment. The purpose of the
present study was to determine the estrogenic activity of wastewater and the
elimination efficiency of various WWTPs in the different purification steps
using the E-screen assay, an in-vitro test system based on the
increasing proliferation of human breast cancer cells (MCF-7) in response to
the presence of hormonal active substances. In contrast
to expensive and time-intensive targeted instrumental single substance analysis
an effect-related biological testing provides a sum parameter for the entirety
of compounds contributing to the total estrogenic activity (agonists and
antagonists, anti-estrogenic and also toxic compounds) in concentration units
of the reference substance 17b-estradiol.
The current standard purification methods of biological wastewater treatment in
particular the activated sludge process significantly reduce estrogenicity
(average 95%). Sorption on activated carbon and subsequent precipitation leads
to a further reduction of the overall estrogenic activity up to 99%.