Practical overview of analytical methods for endocrine-disrupting compounds, pharmaceuticals and personal care products in water and wastewater

Abstract

The detection of organic micropollutants, such as endocrine-disrupting compounds, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, in wastewater and the aquatic environment has brought increasing concern over their potential adverse ecological and human impacts. These compounds are generally present at trace levels (ng l −1 ) and in complex water matrices, such as wastewaters and surface waters, making their analysis difficult. Currently, no standardized analytical methods are available for the analysis of organic micropollutants in environmental waters. Owing to the diversity of physico-chemical properties exhibited by the various classes of organic micropollutants, the majority of established analytical methods described in the literature focus on a specific class of compounds, with few methods applicable to multi-class compound analysis. As such, analytical challenges and limitations contribute to the lack of understanding of the effectiveness of drinking water and wastewater treatment processes to remove organic micropollutants. This paper provides a practical overview of current analytical methods that have been developed for the analysis of multiple classes of organic micropollutants from various water matrices and describes the challenges and limitations associated with the development of these methods.

The competitive adsorption of pharmaceuticals on granular activated carbon in secondary effluent

“…Those compounds present at concentration up to μg ng/L level, can be absorbed to the tissues of animals and humans (especially liver and kidney), hindering metabolic processes and occupying hormone receptors. With the development of living standards, there is an increasing consumption of pharmaceuticals, which results in great amounts of pharmaceutical residues remaining in aquatic environment [4,5]. However, most pharmaceuticals cannot be efficiently eliminated by traditional water treatment processes [6,7].…”

Urban effluent discharges as causes of public and environmental health concerns in South Africa’s aquatic milieu

“…Wastewater effluents, in particular, can harbour a potentially wide array of contaminants ranging from genotoxicants and cytotoxicants (Wirzinger et al 2007;Žegura et al 2009), heavy metals and metalloids (Lohner et al 2001;Ahmad et al 2013), nutrients (Carey and Migliaccio 2009), pesticides (Cahill et al 2011;Köck-Schulmeyer et al 2013), pathogens (Dungeni et al 2010;Odjadjare et al 2010), hydrocarbons, organic matter and endocrine disruptors (e.g. 17β-estradiol, estrone and testosterone) (Ying et al 2004;Comerton et al 2009), among others. The ecotoxicological and public health consequences of riverine water pollution are much more adverse in areas where the dilution capacity of the receiving water body is low and particularly where the contaminants exhibit some or all of the following characteristics: none or slight decomposability, high biological effectiveness, high potential for accumulation and, in the case of multiple contaminants, synergism (Allison and Paul 2014).…”

The development of an optimized sample preparation for trace level detection of 17α-ethinylestradiol and estrone in whole fish tissue

“…Considerable progress has been made in the development of sophisticated techniques to extract, clean-up, and analyze steroidal estrogens from various environmental matrices including surface water, ground water, sewage effluents, sewage sludge, soil, and sediment [1][2][3][4]. However, very few studies have focused on the analysis of these molecules in invertebrates [5] or fish [6][7][8].…”