Microfiber emission from a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Hungary

Abstract

Since the ingestion of both natural and anthropogenic microfibers produces a deleterious effect on aquatic organisms, it is crucial to explore the emission of these pollutants by WWTPs into the receiving water bodies, such as rivers. Cellulose- and petroleum-based microfibers, as well as microplastic particles, were collected from the effluent of a municipal WWTP operating with activated sludge technology in Budapest, Hungary. During two sampling campaigns organized in February and April of 2023 on different working days and at different times of the day, 123–145 L of effluent was sieved and filtered. The organic matter was removed by hydrogen-peroxide treatment. All fibers and particles larger than 10 µm were counted, and using a fluorescence microscope, the fibers were geometrically characterized in terms of length and diameter. Each fiber was individually identified by transflection-FT-IR method. The fiber concentration varied in the range of 1.88–2.84 and 4.25–6.79 items/L during the 7th and the 16th week of 2023, respectively. In February and April, the proportion of microfibers in the solid particles was 78.3 and 94.7%, respectively. In the effluent the cellulose-based microfibers were dominant (53–91%), while among the petroleum-based microfibers, polyester occurred most often. The median length of cellulose-based fibers was considerably higher in April than in February (650 vs. 1250 µm), and simultaneously the median diameter also increased from 21 to 29 µm. This behaviour was also seen, albeit to a lesser extent, in connection to microfibers derived from petroleum. The treated wastewater’s daily microfiber transport to the Danube River varied between 0.44 − 0.69 and 0.94–1.53 billion in February and April 2023, respectively.