Abstract
The acute toxicity of three formulations of commercial detergent (ROMA®, FOCA® and BLANCA NIEVES®) was evaluated using the polychaete Capitella sp. C in static bioassays over a 48-h exposure period. The probit method was used to determine the median lethal concentration (LC50) of each formulation as a whole as well as the LC50 of the active ingredient, linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), using 95 % confidence intervals. The formulations and LAS showed LC50 values of between 70.79 and 147.91 ppm and 15.48 and 22.38 ppm, respectively, at 48 h. FOCA® was the most toxic detergent, followed by BLANCA NIEVES® and finally ROMA®. The variation in the toxicity of the three detergents could have been caused both by differences in the relative concentrations of the anionic surfactant LAS contained in each formulation and the presence of other ingredients (enzymes, sodium silicate, sodium tripolyphosphate, bleachers and perfumes) which can also increase formulation toxicity. Correlation analysis revealed that percent mortality of Capitella sp. C increased with increase in the concentrations of the detergent over the 48-h exposure period. The risk quotient was greater than one for all three evaluated detergents, indicating that there is a high risk that they adversely affect the aquatic biota, particularly sediment-dwelling organisms such as the test species.
Highlights
The contamination of aquatic ecosystems is increasing at an alarming rate as a consequence of the discharge of untreated sewage of urban and industrial origin into coastal zones, rivers, streams and lakes
We examined the ecological risk assessment (ERA) by taking the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) to be equivalent to the linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) value in sediments of 5.3 ppm (Sanchez-Peinado 2007)
It can be appreciated that FOCAÒ produced the lowest LC50 values, both for the formulation as a whole and the active ingredient
Summary
The contamination of aquatic ecosystems is increasing at an alarming rate as a consequence of the discharge of untreated sewage of urban and industrial origin into coastal zones, rivers, streams and lakes. Among the contaminants found in these sewage effluents are organic pollutants such as detergents, which can cause toxicity problems for the aquatic biota found in the receiving water bodies (Uc-Peraza and Delgado-Blas 2012). Detergents and surfactants are among the extensively used chemicals at home as well as in industry (Azizullah et al 2011). The world production of detergent amounts to 10 millions of tons per years (IMRG 2012), and the worldwide total annual production of surfactants is estimated to exceed 15 million tons.
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