Determination of fecal sterols in the sediments of different wastewater outputs by GC-MS

Determination of fecal contamination indicator sterols in an Australian water supply system

“…In a similar study, Chou and Liu (2004) found that areas known to have lower pollutant (raw sewage) loading contained lower concentrations of indicator sterols. Concentrations of coprostanol (up to 134,918 ng/g) and cholestanol (up to 15,784 ng/g) were recorded in streams containing high effluent loadings and were much lower (up to 342 and 334 ng/g for coprostanol and cholestanol, respectively) in streams receiving less sewage wastewater.…”

Use of TIE techniques to characterize industrial effluents in the Pearl River Delta region

“…The characteristic peaks for the toxicants such as PAEs, sterol derivatives and triclosan were found when scanning the effluent extracts using GC-MS and their concentrations were all above 1000 mg/L. The sterol derivatives in the municipal wastewater may originate from the feces of human beings (Chou and Liu, 2004). Chemical data indicate that Cu and Pb were contributing some percentages to the toxicity of effluents from municipal wastewater treatment plants.…”

Use of Enterococcus, BST and Sterols for Poultry Pollution Source Tracking in Surface and Groundwater

“…Sterol ratios are more reliable and widely used in the literature for source pollution tracking (References in Table 2). Sterol ratio criteria for human fecal contamination have been developed based on experimental data mainly from analysis of sterols in sediment although they have been tested and applied in water environments in the connection with discharge from waste water treatment plant discharge (Chan et al, 1998;Chou & Liu, 2004). Although there are numerous studies using sterol ratios for tracking human fecal contamination, few studies have used these ratios for differentiating sources of fecal contamination.…”

“…Higher concentrations of coprostanol have been found in human sewage than in animal wastewater and concentrations of stigmastanol and epicoprostanol were usually higher in animal (cows, pigs, and poultry) than in human wastewater (Blanch et al, 2004). Sterol analysis, a widely used chemical method for identifying fecal pollution sources is based on the fact that different sterol compounds are associated with human or animal waste and their presence/absence and relative concentrations and ratios can be used as an indication of the origin of water contamination (Chou & Liu, 2004;Devane et al, 2006;Gilpin et al, 2003;Bull et al, 2002;Jardé et al, 2007a, b;Saim et al, 2009). …”