A survey on trace organic chemicals in a German water protection area and the proposal of relevant indicators for anthropogenic influences

Abstract

A comprehensive monitoring programme of trace organic chemicals (TOrC) was conducted for a German water protection area in karstic ground. The aim of this survey was to detect the potential anthropogenic influences of point sources such as wastewater treatment plants and diffuse pollution such as runoff water from roads on the raw water used for drinking water treatment. The programme comprised seven sampling campaigns within 2 years each with up to 20 sampling sites. In total, the programme included 84 anthropogenic compounds from pharmaceuticals, iodinated X-ray contrast media, sweeteners, industrial chemicals (benzotriazoles, melamines and benzothiazoles) and pesticide metabolites. Cyclamate occurred with the highest median concentration of 44 μg l in untreated wastewater and acesulfame occurred with a concentration of 20 μg l in treated wastewater. In runoff water from roads, the most relevant compounds were tolyltriazole with 2.3 μg l and the desphenyl-chloridazon with 1.2 μg l. In the stream waters, the highest median concentrations were found for melamine and acesulfame both at 0.61 μg l. High elimination during conventional wastewater treatment was observed for 5 out of 49 compounds. These are acetyl-sulfamethoxazole, aciclovir, cyclamate, ibuprofen and saccharin. Based on the survey results, we propose a set of nine compounds to be used as indicators for wastewater, untreated wastewater and runoff water from roads for an efficient surveillance. The indicators are intended to detect anthropogenic influences in surface, ground and drinking water.

Runoff of the Tire-Wear Compound, Hexamethoxymethyl-Melamine into Urban Watersheds

“…Furthermore, HMMM readily leaches from tire material, confirming that HMMM is a chemical constituent of tire wear particles (Peter et al 2018). HMMM has been used as an indicator for the presence of leachates from tire wear particles in road runoff (Seitz and Winzenbacher 2017;Peter et al 2019;Warner et al 2019;Hou et al 2019;Tian et al 2020).…”

“…The presence of HMMM in stormwater indicates that this compound may enter the aquatic environment through runoff from impermeable road surfaces. Seitz and Winzenbacher (2017) detected HMMM at a concentration of 0.66 μg/L in runoff from a highway in Germany. Furthermore, HMMM readily leaches from tire material, confirming that HMMM is a chemical constituent of tire wear particles (Peter et al 2018).…”

Removal of Aniline and Benzothiazole Wastewaters Using an Efficient MnO2/GAC Catalyst in a Photocatalytic Fluidised Bed Reactor

“…In particular, these two pollutants have adverse effects on the health of organisms in aquatic environments and may also be tumour inducers and allergens [6,9]. In addition, BTH (included in Contaminant Candidate List 4) is not only found in industrial effluents but can also be detected in domestic wastewater and airport runoff water [10][11][12]. Bioremediation studies have reported uncertainty about the biodegradation of both compounds, especially aniline, owing to its genotoxic character.…”

Advantage of liquid chromatography with high‐resolution mass spectrometry for the detection of the small and polar molecules trifluoroacetic acid and sulfamic acid

“…The monitoring of a large number of polar trace organic chemicals in water using LC-MS has been well-established in the water and environmental field [1][2][3][4][5]. Anthropogenic organic chemicals from different application fields such as pharmaceuticals, veterinary drugs, household, and industrial chemicals were included in different studies [6,7]. European Union-wide monitoring programs were conducted It is thus likely that especially such polar components can be present in the water cycle and are not detected as adequate analytical methods are still not widespread.…”

“…At present, the analytes’ molecular weights included in published monitoring programmes comprising a larger set of trace organic chemicals mostly range between 150 and 1000 g/mol. Analytes with molecular weights below 100 to 120 g/mol are typically not included . For such small analytes additional problems can occur.…”