Which chemicals drive biological effects in wastewater and recycled water?

Tang, J. and Busetti, F. and Charrois, J. and Escher, B. 2014. Which chemicals drive biological effects in wastewater and recycled water? Water Research. 60: pp. 289-299.

Source Title

Water Research

DOI

10.1016/j.watres.2014.04.043

ISSN

0043-1354

Remarks

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in the journal Water Research. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in the journal Water Research, Vol.60 (2014). DOI: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2014.04.043

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/20296

Collection

Curtin Research Publications

Abstract

Removal of organic micropollutants from wastewater during secondary treatment followed by reverse osmosis and UV disinfection was evaluated by a combination of four in-vitro cell-based bioassays and chemical analysis of 299 organic compounds. Concentrations detected in recycled water were below the Australian Guidelines for Water Recycling. Thus the detected chemicals were considered not to pose any health risk. The detected pesticides in the wastewater treatment plant effluent and partially advanced treated water explained all observed effects on photosynthesis inhibition. In contrast, mixture toxicity experiments with designed mixtures containing all detected chemicals at their measured concentrations demonstrated that the known chemicals explained less than 3% of the observed cytotoxicity and less than 1% of the oxidative stress response. Pesticides followed by pharmaceuticals and personal care products dominated the observed mixture effects. The detected chemicals were not related to the observed genotoxicity. The large proportion of unknown toxicity calls for effect monitoring complementary to chemical monitoring.