Ozone Oxidation of Endocrine Disruptors and Pharmaceuticals in Surface Water and Wastewater

Abstract

The oxidative removal of a diverse group of trace organic contaminants from surface water and wastewater was evaluated using ozone (O 3 ) and O 3 combined with hydrogen peroxide (O 3 /H 2 O 2 ). Target compounds included estrogenic and androgenic steroids, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals. Bench-and pilot-scale experiments were conducted with surface water spiked with the target compounds and wastewater effluent containing ambient concentrations of target compounds. Full-scale water treatment plants were sampled before and after ozonation to determine if bench-and pilot-scale results accurately predict full-scale removal. In both drinking water and wastewater experiments, the majority of target compounds were removed by greater than 90% at O 3 exposures commonly used for disinfection. Atrazine, iopromide, meprobamate, and tris-chloroethylphosphate (TCEP) were the most recalcitrant compounds to oxidize using O 3 , with removals generally less than 50%. The addition of H 2 O 2 for advanced oxidation was of little benefit for contaminant removal as compared to O 3 alone. O 3 /H 2 O 2 provided a marginal increase in the removal of dilantin, diazepam, DEET, iopromide, and meprobamate, while decreasing the removal efficacy of pentoxifylline, caffeine, testosterone, progesterone, and androstenedione. In wastewater experiments, O 3 and O 3 /H 2 O 2 were shown to remove in vitro estrogenicity. Collectively, these data provide evidence that O 3 is a highly effective oxidant for removing the majority of trace organic contaminants from water.

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in effluent matrices: A survey of transformation and removal during wastewater treatment and implications for wastewater management

“…34,40,52,71,72 Similar to observations with MBRs, available data indicate a slight increase in the extent of PPCP removal when sand filtration is used for post-secondary treatment (Fig. 6).…”

“…7 includes PPCP data from a full-scale treatment facility incorporating BAC for tertiary treatment. 72 Although the system displayed good removal for several PPCPs, more work is needed to understand the design and operational parameters influencing PPCP removal by BAC.…”

“…40,46,72,86,87 Huber et al 87 conducted a pilot-scale investigation in which ozone was applied to secondary effluents from both a CAS system and a MBR that they spiked with a range of PPCPs. Their results showed nearly complete degradation of macrolides, estrogens, and sulfonamides due to transformation of their tertiary amino groups, phenolic moieties and aniline moieties, respectively.…”

“…Hollender et al 46 considered the fate of 220 micropollutants in a wastewater treatment facility in Regensdorf, Switzerland that employed activated sludge, followed directly by ozonation and then sand filtration. We also note that plant influent data were not reported in Snyder et al, 72 thus ozonated effluent concentrations are compared to values measured in secondary effluent prior to any tertiary treatment processes.…”

N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide transformation in river water

“…The majority of DEET enters waterways via sewage effluent following washing off and absorption/excretion by humans; almost 20% is adsorbed through skin, metabolized or excreted (Sudakin et al, 2003). Even if DEET can be efficiently abated through advanced oxidation processes (AOPS) methods such as Fenton (Zhang et al, 2006;Zhang et al, 2007) and ozone treatment (Snyder et al, 2006), it was found at trace level in surface waters, groundwater and waters for human consumption (Sandstrom et al, 2005;Kolpin et al, 2004;Langford et al, 2008;Costanzo et al, 2007). DEET presence was detected in USA rivers, at an average concentration of 0.05 μg/L (Sandstrom et al, 2005); into 97% of surface waters in Australian Eastern coast at an average concentration of 0.093μg/L (Costanzo et al, 2007); in Europe, across river Rhine at concentration ranging from 15 to 30 ng/L (Schwarzbauer et al, 2005 Quednow and Püttmann, 2009), across Norway coast at concentrations 0.4-13 ng/L (Langford et al, 2008;Weigel et al, 2004), and in the North Sea, where it is considered as a ubiquitous pollutant with an average concentration of 1.1 ng/L in summertime (Weigel et al 2002).…”