Abstract
Sewage sludge is formed during wastewater treatment and in recent years, the amount of sewage sludge increased rapidly all over the world. This sewage sludge is attractive for usage in agriculture as an inexpensive nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer. However, there is only very limited knowledge about the spectrum of organic pollutants that might occur in sewage sludge and is probably posing a threat to the environment. We therefore conducted GC–MS based non-target screening analyses in order to identify a wide spectrum of organic contaminants in sludge samples from several wastewater treatment plants and to figure out corresponding finger-prints of pollution. The plants are located in Germany and China and have various capacities ranging from 35,000 to 1.1 million population equivalents. The special focus was to reveal information on the structural variety of individual organic compounds in sludge samples from the two countries. Several emerging pollutants including some fragrances, pharmaceutical educts, vitaminoids, technical additives were identified accompanied by compounds of biogenic origin. Some of these compounds have rarely been reported as constituents of sewage sludge to date and, consequently, are relevant candidates for more specific assessments including the ecotoxicological long-term effects. Based on the results of this study, it seems mandatory to establish non-target screening analyses on a regularly base as a tool for a comprehensive identification of the variety of anthropogenic organic constituents. Following, such contaminant spectrum can act as basis for further environmental risk assessments as well as to provide individual fingerprints for evaluation of impacts on ecosystems.
Highlights
Sewage sludge is a major waste product of wastewater treatment of both industrial and municipal wastewater
The subsequent discussion will focus on the structurally most interesting and—with respect to potential environmental impacts—the most important anthropogenic contaminants detected in the sewage sludge samples from Germany and China
Two groups of compounds have been differentiated: (1) common organic pollutants that were frequently described as constituents of wastewaters and sewage sludge in previous studies, and (2) emerging organic pollutants which have to date not been reported as contaminants in this matrix
Summary
Sewage sludge is a major waste product of wastewater treatment of both industrial and municipal wastewater. The occurrence of organic contaminants in wastewaters and sewage sludge of industrialized countries, including Europe, North America and Australia, have been widely investigated and well documented [2, 7,8,9,10]. All studies related to organic pollution in sewage sludge focused solely on selected treatment plants in individual countries, many of them considering only preselected contaminants. The special focus was a comparison of the structural diversity of sewage sludge constituents in the samples from the two countries and the characterization of corresponding fingerprints. Selected contaminants were quantified to provide a more detailed view on the concentration levels of organic constituents in sewage sludge samples. This study will represent a preliminary approach on pattern comparison of sewage derived pollutants
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