Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India.
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Oct 10;894:165094. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165094. Epub 2023 Jun 22.
Emerging contaminants (ECs) in the environment are a cause of concern due to their potential toxic effects. The study investigates the fate of 20 ECs covering a wide range of physical-chemical properties in ten full-scale municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The plants were based on conventional technologies such as waste stabilization pond, upflow sludge blanket reactor, activated sludge process, and biological nutrient removal-based technologies such as anoxic-aerobic process, anaerobic-anoxic-aerobic process, biodenipho process, sequencing batch reactor, and densadeg-biofor process. Covering all the wastewater and sludge treatment lines, the mass balance approach was followed to investigate the fate of ECs at each treatment stage. The amount of ECs entering and leaving the WWTPs ranged from 0.82 to 11.94 kg/day and 0.027 to 0.70 kg/day, respectively. Antibiotics showed limited removal and were detected in the 0.006 to 0.18 kg/day range. The ECs were mainly detected in the aqueous phase in all the treatment steps. However, the contribution from the particulate and sludge phase cannot be neglected. The sorption of ECs on sludge depended on the sludge's characteristics. It was found to be the highest in the primary sludge. The measured sorption coefficient indicated that both hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions of ECs with the sludge are insufficient in explaining the sorption behaviour of a contaminant. The mass balance studies show biodegradation as the major removal pathway in all the WWTPs. The study provides the environmental mass load of ECs from Indian WWTPs. It will help understand the removal mechanisms of ECs in different types of wastewater treatment techniques.
环境中的新兴污染物（ECs）因其潜在的毒性效应而引起关注。本研究调查了覆盖十种全规模城市污水处理厂（WWTP）中广泛物理化学性质的 20 种 ECs 的命运。这些工厂基于传统技术，如废物稳定池塘、上流污泥毯反应器、活性污泥工艺以及生物营养去除技术，如缺氧-好氧工艺、厌氧-缺氧-好氧工艺、生物脱氮工艺、序批式反应器和 densadeg-biofor 工艺。采用质量平衡方法，通过跟踪所有废水和污泥处理线，研究 ECs 在每个处理阶段的命运。进入和离开 WWTP 的 ECs 量分别在 0.82 到 11.94kg/天和 0.027 到 0.70kg/天之间。抗生素的去除效果有限，检出量在 0.006 到 0.18kg/天之间。ECs 在所有处理步骤中主要在水相中被检出。然而，颗粒相和污泥相的贡献不可忽视。ECs 在污泥上的吸附取决于污泥的特性。在初沉污泥中吸附量最高。测量的吸附系数表明，ECs 与污泥之间的疏水和静电相互作用不足以解释污染物的吸附行为。质量平衡研究表明，生物降解是所有 WWTP 的主要去除途径。该研究提供了来自印度 WWTP 的 ECs 的环境质量负荷。它将有助于了解不同类型的废水处理技术中 ECs 的去除机制。
