Presence of Phenolic Compounds in Sewage, Effluent and Sludge from Municipal Sewage Treatment Plants

Abstract

A total of 25 municipal sewage treatment plants were sampled, 10 of which were resampled, to determine the quantity of phenolics in the sewage, final effluent and the anaerobically digested sludge using capillary GC/MS/DS/techniques. The study noted in decreasing order of frequency in raw sewage: phenol, pentachloro-phenol, dimethyl phenol, 3-methyl, 4-chlorophenol, 2,4,6-trichloro-phenol, 2,4-dichlorophenol, 2-nitrophenol, 2-chlorophenol, 2,4-dinitro-6-methylphenol and 2,4-dinitrophenol. The maximum concentration of phenol in sewage and sludge was 2800 ppb and 4460 respectively, while similar values for pentachlorophenol were 58 and 1200 ppb. Statistically calculated concentration reductions for phenol and dimethyl phenol were generally greater than noted for tri- and pentachlorophenol. Low decreases or increases were noted for monochlorophenol and especially for dichlorophenol as a result of the chloronation of the final effluent.

β-Cyclodextrin based Molecular Imprinted Solid Phase Extraction for Class Selective Extraction of Priority Phenols in Water Samples

“…Chlorophenols are found in the aquatic environment due to pesticide degradation in particular insecticide (2) and they could also be generated from phenols in drinking water chlorination (3). The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has listed eleven phenol compounds as priority pollutants in the aquatic medium; among them, chlorophenols are especially toxic and potentially carcinogenic (4).…”

An Ultrasonically Facilitated Boron-Doped Diamond Voltammetric Sensor for Analysis of the Priority Pollutant 4-Chlorophenol

“…In comparison to the bulk of CPs in aqueous media, 4-CP itself is relatively stable towards photo-degradation giving it a comparatively lengthy environmental residence time [2]. Although it has some potentially beneficial uses as a biocide and a pesticide precursor, the majority of 4-CP is released into the environment as a byproduct of various industrial activities, including the chlorinated bleaching of paper and chlorination of drinking water [3], drug decay [4] and via waste from the coal, gas and oil industries [5]. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [6] and the European Union (EU) [7] have labelled CPs as 'priority pollutants', which means that they need to be constantly monitored in the aquatic environment and that a value of 0.5 mg L À1 is the upper permissible limit of these compounds in publicly supplied water [8].…”

New carrier electrolytes for the separation of chlorophenols by capillary electrophoresis

“…Chlorophenols are a group of pollutants expelled into environmental waters and soils by a wide variety of industrial processes [1,2]. Standard official analytical methods for phenolic compounds, e.g., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) method 625, use gas chromatography (GC) with electron capture detection (ECD) or mass spectrometry (MS).…”