Hochschule Fresenius gem. GmbH, Limburger Str. 2, Idstein, 65510, Germany.
Umweltbundesamt, Section Toxicology of Drinking Water and Swimming Pool Water, Heinrich-Heine-Strasse 12, Bad Elster, 08645, Germany.
Water Res. 2022 Aug 1;221:118847. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2022.118847. Epub 2022 Jul 10.
Persistent and mobile (PM) chemicals spread quickly in the water cycle and can reach drinking water. If these chemicals are also toxic (PMT) they may pose a threat to the aquatic environment and drinking water alike, and thus measures to prevent their spread are necessary. In this study, nontarget screening and cell-based toxicity tests after a polarity-based fractionation into polar and non-polar chemicals are utilized to assess and compare the effectiveness of ozonation and filtration through activated carbon in a wastewater treatment and drinking water production plant. Especially during wastewater treatment, differences in removal efficiency were evident. While median areas of non-polar features were reduced by a factor of 270, median areas for polar chemicals were only reduced by a factor of 4. Polar features showed significantly higher areas than their non-polar counterparts in wastewater treatment plant effluent and finished drinking water, implying a protection gap for these chemicals. Toxicity tests revealed higher initial toxicities (especially oxidative stress and estrogenic activity) for the non-polar fraction, but also showed a more pronounced decrease during treatment. Generally, the toxicity of the effluent was low for both fractions. Combined, these results imply a less effective removal but also a lower toxicity of polar chemicals. The behaviour of features during advanced waste and drinking water treatment was used to classify them as either PM chemicals or mobile transformation products (M-TPs). A suspect screening of the 476 highest intensity PM chemicals and M-TPs in 57 environmental and tap water samples showed high frequencies of detection (median >80%), which indicates the wide distribution of these chemicals in the aquatic environment and thus supports the chosen classification approach and the more generally applicability of obtained insights.
持久性和移动性 (PM) 化学物质在水循环中迅速扩散，并可能到达饮用水源。如果这些化学物质具有毒性（PMT），它们可能对水生环境和饮用水源构成威胁，因此需要采取措施防止其扩散。在这项研究中，利用基于极性的分离将极性和非极性化学物质分为极性和非极性化学物质后，进行非靶向筛选和基于细胞的毒性测试，以评估和比较臭氧氧化和活性炭过滤在废水处理和饮用水生产厂中的效果。特别是在废水处理过程中，去除效率的差异明显。非极性特征的中位数面积减少了 270 倍，而极性化学物质的中位数面积仅减少了 4 倍。极性特征在废水处理厂出水和饮用水中的面积明显高于非极性特征，这意味着这些化学物质存在保护缺口。毒性测试显示，非极性部分的初始毒性（特别是氧化应激和雌激素活性）更高，但在处理过程中也显示出更明显的下降。一般来说，两种馏分的出水毒性都较低。综合来看，这些结果表明极性化学物质的去除效果较差，但毒性也较低。特征在高级废水和饮用水处理过程中的行为被用来将它们分类为持久性化学物质或移动转化产物 (M-TP)。对 57 个环境和自来水样本中的 476 种高浓度 PM 化学物质和 M-TP 进行了可疑筛选，结果显示高检出率（中位数>80%），这表明这些化学物质在水生环境中的广泛分布，从而支持了所选的分类方法和所获得的见解的更广泛适用性。
