A Characterization of Selected Endocrine Disruptor Compounds in a Portuguese Wastewater Treatment Plant

Abstract

Anthropogenic compounds that are able to disrupt the endocrine system of wildlife species are a major cause for concern and have led to a demand for new screening methods. The identification and quantification of endocrine disruptor compounds at wastewater treatment plant is of major interest to assess the endocrine activity of wastewater treatment plant discharges into the environment. This study consists of a preliminary survey of concentrations of previously selected endocrine disruptor compounds, undertaken to establish environmental concentrations and to support a biological program assay exposing freshwater fish to them. Selected endocrine disrupting chemicals (APEs, bisphenol A and 17 beta-estradiol) were measured in samples from a wastewater treatment plant located in Lisbon (Portugal), using recent commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits and also LC-MS/MS. The results show that the wastewater treatment plant treatment process is efficient on the removal of target endocrine disruptor compounds. However, environmentally significant concentrations are still present in the treated effluent. The results also show that enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit is suitable for routine analysis of the selected compounds. The results are also useful since the wastewater treatment plant is located in a Mediterranean region, which results in an effluent with its own characteristics.

Contaminantes emergentes em matrizes aquáticas do Brasil: cenário atual e aspectos analíticos, ecotoxicológicos e regulatórios

“…108 Com relação aos ftalatos, Singh e Li reportaram vinte doenças associadas à exposição a três principais compostos (DnOP, BBP e DEHP), incluindo disfunções no sistema endócrino, genital e uroló-gico, complicações no fígado e doenças cardiovasculares. 139 Outros estudos mostraram que a exposição de diferentes organismos frente aos interferentes endócrinos levaram à ocorrência de efeitos como a feminização de peixes, [140][141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148][149] alterações no desenvolvimento de moluscos e anfíbios, [150][151][152][153][154] disfunções no metabolismo da testosterona em Daphnias 155,156 e o desenvolvimento anormal de órgãos em diferentes organismos aquáticos. 19,146,149,150,157,158 Na Índia, após observarem o declínio de cerca de 95% da quantidade de uma espécie de urubus (Oriental white-backed vulture) na década de 90, Oaks e colaboradores apresentaram fortes evidencias de que as doenças renais que afetaram os animais foram decorrentes da ingestão de resíduos de diclofenaco presentes nas carcaças de búfalos e cabras tratados com o fármaco.…”

Surface Water Quality Monitoring in Nigeria: Situational Analysis and Future Management Strategy

“…Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) consist of many natural and synthetic organic compounds, but are mostly manmade products such as alkylphenols, alkylphenols-ethonylates, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Others include polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, polychlorinated dibenzofurans, organochlor pesticides, dichlorodiphenyl, dichloroethylene, nonylphenols, steroid hormones and phthalates (Arditsoglou and Voutsa, 2008;Hjelmborg et al, 2006;Mauricio et al, 2006). Of these groups of chemicals are Phthalates or phthalic acid esters (PAEs).…”

An alternative method for the determination of estrogens in surface water and wastewater treatment plant effluent using pre-column trimethylsilyl derivatization and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

“…So it is very important to determine the concentration of estrogens in environmental water. Considering low volatility of steroid estrogens, LC/MS (Ferguson et al 2001;López and Barceló 2001;Hu et al 2005;Cui et al 2006) and LC/MS/MS (Zhang and Henion 1999;Baronti et al 2000;Johnson et al 2000;Xu et al 2004Xu et al , 2005Xu et al , 2006Maurício et al 2006;Matejicek et al 2007) methods have recently been developed for the determination of these estrogenic compounds. However, at present, the application of LC/MS and LC/MS/MS in environmental analyses of estrogenic steroids appears to be limited for their complex operation and capital costs.…”