Status of hormones and painkillers in wastewater effluents across several European states-considerations for the EU watch list concerning estradiols and diclofenac.

P Schröder,J Dvarioniene,S Meric Pagano,M Papa,C Pastore,C Vogelsang,M Molinos,A Langenhoff,M Carballa,C Huber,Z Emre,E Martinez-Lopez,B Helmreich,B Škrbić,A Oehmen,K P Tsagarakis,G Mascolo

doi:10.1007/s11356-016-6503-x

Abstract

Present technologies for wastewater treatment do not sufficiently address the increasing pollution situation of receiving water bodies, especially with the growing use of personal care products and pharmaceuticals (PPCP) in the private household and health sector. The relevance of addressing this problem of organic pollutants was taken into account by the Directive 2013/39/EU that introduced (i) the quality evaluation of aquatic compartments, (ii) the polluter pays principle, (iii) the need for innovative and affordable wastewater treatment technologies, and (iv) the identification of pollution causes including a list of principal compounds to be monitored. In addition, a watch list of 10 other substances was recently defined by Decision 2015/495 on March 20, 2015. This list contains, among several recalcitrant chemicals, the painkiller diclofenac and the hormones 17β-estradiol and 17α-ethinylestradiol. Although some modern approaches for their removal exist, such as advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), retrofitting most wastewater treatment plants with AOPs will not be acceptable as consistent investment at reasonable operational cost. Additionally, by-product and transformation product formation has to be considered. The same is true for membrane-based technologies (nanofiltration, reversed osmosis) despite of the incredible progress that has been made during recent years, because these systems lead to higher operation costs (mainly due to higher energy consumption) so that the majority of communities will not easily accept them. Advanced technologies in wastewater treatment like membrane bioreactors (MBR) that integrate biological degradation of organic matter with membrane filtration have proven a more complete elimination of emerging pollutants in a rather cost- and labor-intensive technology. Still, most of the presently applied methods are incapable of removing critical compounds completely. In this opinion paper, the state of the art of European WWTPs is reflected, and capacities of single methods are described. Furthermore, the need for analytical standards, risk assessment, and economic planning is stressed. The survey results in the conclusion that combinations of different conventional and advanced technologies including biological and plant-based strategies seem to be most promising to solve the burning problem of polluting our environment with hazardous emerging xenobiotics.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11356-016-6503-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Introduction and demandAcross Europe, most people do not know where their drinking water comes from, and they are not aware of how big the efforts are to allow the performance of the most normal daily action, namely to open the tap and to consume clean, clear, and pure water
wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) effluents are considered the main source of estrogens in the environment (Snyder et al 2001). Using these three selected micropollutants from the European Union (EU) watch list as representatives, the aim of this review is to summarize current problems and solutions in several EU countries and critically evaluate the viability of various treatment methods for the removal of micropollutants from wastewater
Priority and emerging organic pollutants and pathogens are continuously discharged into European rivers and streams, thereby compromising valuable ecosystem services and resulting in potentially adverse effects to aquatic organisms

Summary

Introduction and demand

Across Europe, most people do not know where their drinking water comes from, and they are not aware of how big the efforts are to allow the performance of the most normal daily action, namely to open the tap and to consume clean, clear, and pure water. The most commonly applied secondary treatment in WWTPs is the conventional activated sludge process (CAS), where both organic matter and nutrients are biologically removed In this step, removal of a parent compound occurs by different mechanisms: a) stripping by aeration; b) sorption to particles or biomass; and c) biotransformation/biodegradation. Serrano et al (2010, 2011) reported a significant improvement of DCF removal by adding 1 mg L−1 PAC to an MBR treating municipal wastewater and of 0.5 mg L−1 GAC to a conventional activated sludge treatment.

Method

Findings

Concluding remarks