Occurrence, Removal, and Environmental Emission of Organophosphate Flame Retardants/Plasticizers in a Wastewater Treatment Plant in New York State

Abstract

The occurrence and fate of 14 triester organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs) and plasticizers and their two diester metabolites were investigated in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in the Albany area of New York State. All target OPFRs were found in wastewater, with average concentrations that ranged from 20.1 ng/L for tris(methylphenyl) phosphate (TMPP) to 30 100 ng/L for tris(2-butoxyethyl)phosphate (TBOEP) in influents and from 7.68 ng/L for TMPP to 12 600 ng/L for TBOEP in final effluents. TBOEP was the dominant compound in influents (max: 69 500 ng/L) followed in decreasing order by tris(1-chloro-2-propyl)phosphate (TCIPP; max: 14 500 ng/L), bis(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate (BDCIPP; max: 4550 ng/L), tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate (TDCIPP; max: 3150 ng/L) and tris(2-chloroethyl)phosphate (TCEP; max: 8450 ng/L). The fraction of TMPP sorbed to suspended particulate matter (SPM) was 56.4% of the total mass in wastewater, which was the highest among the target chemicals analyzed. The average concentrations of OPFRs in sludge were between 4.14 ng/g dw for tripropyl phosphate (TPP) and 7290 ng/g dw for TBOEP; for ash, they were between 2.17 ng/g dw for TMPP and 427 ng/g dw for triphenyl phosphate (TPhP). The mass loadings of OPFRs into the WWTP ranged from 0.02 mg/day/person for TPP to 28.7 mg/day/person for TBOEP, whereas the emission from the WWTP ranged from 0.01 mg/day/person for 2-ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate (EHDPP) to 5.12 mg/day/person for TCIPP. The removal efficiencies for OPFRs were slightly above 60% for TMPP, TBOEP, and tris(2-ethylhexyl)phosphate (TEHP) whereas those for other OPFRs were <40% (TPhP and BDCIPP) to negative values, suggesting incomplete removal in WWTPs.

Mass defect filtering for suspect screening of halogenated environmental chemicals: A case study of chlorinated organophosphate flame retardants

“…The transformation of OP flame retardants in indoor and outdoor environments has been reported but has been poorly characterized . Fu et al reported the estimated half‐lives for Cl‐PFRs to be higher than those for non‐chlorinated ones using EPI Suite version 4.11 .…”

“…Released PFRs enter and contaminate the surrounding environment and have been detected in indoor and outdoor environments and in environmental media such as air, water, soil and sediment . Numerous monitoring studies have reported OP triesters entering the water cycle and being detected in a suite of aqueous environments such as river and marine waters, surface and ground waters, drinking and tap waters, precipitation and rain waters, and influents and effluents of sewage treatment plants . Ester bonds in OPFRs are prone to abiotic hydrolysis that determines their stability and reactivity in aqueous media .…”

“…1,[12][13][14] Numerous monitoring studies have reported OP triesters entering the water cycle and being detected in a suite of aqueous environments such as river and marine waters, surface and ground waters, drinking and tap waters, precipitation and rain waters, and influents and effluents of sewage treatment plants. 1,9,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] Ester bonds in OPFRs are prone to abiotic hydrolysis that determines their stability and reactivity in aqueous media. 25,26 A pH-dependent hydrolysis of OP triesters was characterized by Su et al, 25 indicating their variable fate in environmental waters depending on the pH.…”

First determination of high levels of organophosphorus flame retardants and plasticizers in dolphins from Southern European waters

“…The occurrence of OPFRs in natural environments was first reported in the late 1970s (Saeger et al, 1979;Sheldon and Hites, 1978). Since then OPFRs have been detected in numerous environmental samples such as in air, wastewater effluent, household dust, sediment, and biota (Brandsma et al, 2015;Giulivo et al, 2017;Kademoglou et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2017;Aznar-Alemany et al, 2018;Herrero et al, 2018). However, their occurrence in the marine environment is not widely reported.…”

Sulfamethoxazole/Trimethoprim ratio as a new marker in raw wastewaters: A critical review

“…The occurrence of numerous emerging contaminants in raw wastewaters has spurred the interest of the scientific community in further tracing the sources of the contamination of environmental compartments (Al Tran et al, 2014b;Verlicchi et al, 2010) and in backcalculating their use in the catchment area (Choi et al, 2018;Kasprzyk-Hordern, 2019;Van Hal, 2019). Several types of usage are therefore monitored in raw wastewaters such as illicit drug and pharmaceutical consumption (Baz-Lomba et al, 2016;Ort et al, 2014), industrial inputs (Kim et al, 2017;Rousis et al, 2017), and personal care product uses (Bressy et al, 2016;Nakada et al, 2017). This new scientific discipline, called wastewater-based (or sewage) epidemiology, has highlighted several patterns in the use/consumption of such compounds from the local to the worldwide scale (Causanilles et al, 2018;Thomas et al, 2012).…”