Occurrence of estrogenic endocrine disrupting chemicals concern in sewage plant effluent

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to give a worldwide overview of the concentrations of typical estrogenic endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in the effluent of sewage plants and then compare the concentration distribution of the estrogenic EDCs in ten countries based on the survey data of the estrogenic EDCs research. The concentrations of three main categories (totally eight kinds) of estrogenic EDCs including steroidal estrogens (estrone (E1), estradiol (E2), estriol (E3) and 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2)), phenolic compounds (nonylphenol (NP) and bisphenol A (BPA)) and phthalate esters (dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and dibutyl phthalate (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP)) in the effluents of sewage plants reported in major international journals over the past decade were collected. The statistics showed that the concentration distributions of eight kinds of EDCs were in the range of ng·L^-1 to µg·L^-1. The concentrations of steroidal estrogens mainly ranged within 50.00 ng·L^-1, and the median concentrations of E1, E2, E3 and EE2 were 11.00, 3.68, 4.90 and 1.00 ng·L^-1, respectively. Phenolic compounds and phthalate esters were found at μg·L^-1 level (some individual values were at the high level of 40.00 µg·L^-1). The median concentrations of BPA, NP, DBP and DEHP were 0.06, 0.55, 0.07 and 0.88 µg·L^-1, respectively. The concentrations of phenolic compounds and phthalate esters in the effluents were higher than that of steroids estrogens. The analysis of the concentration in various ten countries showed that steroids estrogens, phenolic compounds and phthalate esters in sewage plant effluents were detected with high concentration in Canada, Spain and China, respectively.

Keywords

estrogenic endocrine disrupting chemicals / concentration distribution / sewage plant

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51138006), Ministry of Environmental Protection of China (No. 201109015) and Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2010DFA92090).

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