Department of Civil Engineering, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
Water Sci Technol. 2013;68(3):567-74. doi: 10.2166/wst.2013.282.
Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents are considered to be a major source for the release in the aquatic environment of endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs). Ozone has proved to be a suitable solution for polishing secondary domestic effluents. In this work, the performance of a full-scale ozonation plant was investigated in order to assess the removal efficiency of four target EDCs: nonylphenol, nonylphenol monoethoxylate, nonylphenol diethoxylate and bisphenol A. The studied system was the tertiary treatment stage of a municipal WWTP which receives an important industrial (textile) load. Chemical analyses showed that the considered substances occurred with a significant variability, typical of real wastewaters; based on this, ozonation performance was carefully evaluated and it appeared to be negatively affected by flow-rate increase (during rainy days, with consequent contact time reduction). Moreover, EDCs' measured removal efficiency was lower than what could be predicted based on literature data, because of the relatively high residual content of biorefractory compounds still present after biological treatment.
污水处理厂（WWTP）的废水被认为是向水生环境中释放内分泌干扰化合物（EDCs）的主要来源。臭氧已被证明是一种适合于二级生活污水深度处理的方法。在这项工作中，研究了一个全规模的臭氧处理厂，以评估四种目标 EDCs（壬基酚、壬基酚单乙氧基化物、壬基酚二乙氧基化物和双酚 A）的去除效率。所研究的系统是接收重要工业（纺织）负荷的市政 WWTP 的三级处理阶段。化学分析表明，所考虑的物质的存在具有很大的可变性，这是实际废水的典型特征；基于这一点，仔细评估了臭氧处理的性能，发现它受到流量增加的负面影响（在雨天，接触时间相应减少）。此外，由于生物处理后仍存在相对较高的生物难降解化合物残留，所测量的 EDCs 去除效率低于文献数据预测的结果。
